MARCH ARRIVAL LOG;

[freezers]

⬡ WHO: Everyone!!
⬡ WHAT: Waking up in space, naked and... not actually that alone. Also, a hull breach, also, some fuckery in the AC room.
⬡ WHEN: Day 001 - 004
⬡ WHERE: Kostka IV, all over.
⬡ NOTES: WARNINGS: Body horror, scary monsters, creepy invisible things, rude naked people, Mass Effect Banshee Screech, 2% Cannibalism.

Please send all QUESTIONS here!

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

⬡ [ DAY 001 - 003 ] A spark of electricity convulses through your body, and you jolt awake - underwater. Or, at least, that's most peoples' first guess. The color is more vibrant than water should be, and heavier, your body feeling sluggish against the weight and drag of it. Or perhaps you're just slower to respond, distant, limbs and mind still drowsy and reeling. The bright fluid doesn't sting when you blink, if anything, it's soothing, healing, calming. Fortunate, that, because you're going to need it. As the pod-like chamber you're held in starts to drain of the liquid, your senses begin to flood back in. Awareness filters in like a window curtain holding back the morning sun, gradually easing away with each inch the water line lowers. There's something on your face - a mask, strapped around the back of your head, and other thinner tendrils against your cheeks, your ears, your neck. Narrow tubes are channeled through in your nostrils, and cables have slithered in through your ears, plugging into God knows what on the inside of your skull. There's a click that you feel more than hear, and the tension on them slacks, disconnected from somewhere inside you. Pull - up, back, to the side, whichever way you want - and they start to drag free. Far from the most pleasant feeling (likely leaves you wanting to crawl right out of your skin), but it doesn't quite hurt or burn, yet. That's for the inch wide tube shoved down your throat and held in place by the mask. It's also what's keeping you breathing underneath this blue space-goo though, so maybe don't go yanking it off until the lid of your pod opens. As the fluid drains, a voice crackles in over the sound of water oscillating around your ears. Not something played from a speaker anywhere, nothing projected on a screen, and whether the cables are still in your ears or not, you hear her all the same, as if she's more inside your head than she is broadcasting over a speaker inside the pod or coming muffled from outside. Even still, it's stuttered and interrupted, like the connection is weak, interference like static white noise buzzing through and covering up parts of sentences. ❝ I don’t have a lot of tim— RIP can’t spare the power to run this more t—, so pay attention. No one knows where it came fr— out of radio contact when it happened, whatever it w— Everything in its path. There is no fighting it. Only surviv— Droids handle most of the maintenance, but she’s getting wor— Take the load off. Whatever happe— just keep Ripley running. If the ship stops, we’re all dea— —’re bodies are new, still adjusting. You’ll be on unsteady legs for a while, so take it slo— might end up face-planting, and there’s only so many replacemen— Mess hall’s lock— so make do. The cryo pod fluid’s the most nutritious thing around, just don’t think about wh— —’s all I can tell you. Good luck. ❞ » » » READ MORE HERE « « « At the end of the long lines of cryo pods, the halls meet at a small medbay. It seems some merciful someone has left a stack of thin, cloth sheets on one of the medbay tables, so it's best you pick one up, towel off a bit, and then toga it, until you find something more durable. Hopefully, at some point, someone will discover a door leading to a storage room is unlocked. There, you'll find some very stylish, bright orange jumpsuits. With luck, you'll make it there before you freeze. [[ OOC CONTENT WARNING (2% Cannibalism): This is OOC knowledge only, but given the sketchy nature of this, we wanted to make sure you guys are aware of what's coming ahead of time, so if you'd like to avoid having to RP the fallout from it, you have that option. The blue goop in the cryo pods that the NPCs have been telling characters to eat in order to expedite their acclimation to their new bodies/get over their Bambi Legs syndrome? It's 2% people. That's actual people, not recycled HOST bodies. This 2% is largely what aids the organic part of HOST bodies to work seamlessly with the synthetic part, but drinking the goop is not actually necessary to HOST body survival after emerging from the pods. Foregoing it will leave your character in a weakened state for a longer period of time (think more like 1 - 2 weeks of varying states of bambi legs rather than 1-3 days), but do have another option for sustenance worked into the O2 Garden prompt below if you'd like to avoid dealing you character realizing they ate People Soup in the future. Again, this is OOC knowledge only. Definitely don't feel obligated to have your character eat People Soup if you don't want them to, but please come up with a reason for your character to seek alternate food sources rather than "you know, I think this might have people in it", as we don't want to go into info-modding territory. Thanks, homies!! ]] MAINTENANCE ⬡ [ DAY 001 - 003 ] We're hoping you had time to get over the Bambi legs and get your space legs under you (as well as some space pants onto your body), because Ripley expended a lot of processing power to waking you up. That means it's up to you to make up the difference and get to work cleaning this place up to make it habitable for you and your new crewmates. It's been nothing but RIP and her droids for the last who knows how long, so those things that need to be functioning for the continued survival of organic bodies need to get working. Here's the chores on the docket: ⬡ Water Filtration; Hydration - always a must for you squishy, fleshy things, isn't it? The canal that runs through the Ring atrium is a large part of the reserves, and at one dark innocuous end an uncomfortable grinding noise can be heard. Beneath the surface of the water where there should be wall, there is instead an enormous fan about ten feet in diameter. It's grinding so loud the sound escapes the water barrier, and the cause is pretty clear. There's something wedged between one of the fan blades and the circular housing it's contained in. Someone will need to dive down ten or twelve feet and unstick the human skull stopping the filtration system from running. Beware, though — the second it's free the fan blades will begin spinning, sucking gallons upon gallons of water down into the depths. Hope you can swim! ⬡ O2 Garden; Oxygen - another must. The up-side here is that the facility has been virtually untouched, yielding unchecked growth for the time no one's been tending to it, so there's no need to worry about a lack of oxygen for the time being. The bad part is more about the chaos that's left behind. The garden is nearly a jungle at this point, and if crew is to make their way around easily, manage the hydroponics, and set up the vegetable gardens again to provide food outside of the cryo soup, there's some major work to be done. It likely doesn't help that some of the more volatile samples have broken free from containment and mixed in with the rest of the garden. One hostile species will spit acidic venom at things wandering close to its roots while others just chomp down on anything that ventures within reach. Ripley advises boots and protective gear when taking on this task, but getting rid of those weeds is up to you. Here, crew can also find their alternate food sources here, if you're OOCly wanting to avoid dealing with the People Soup reveal later on. If crew can slay some of the hostile plants, then find a means to make a fire and fry them up, the weirdly chewy salad your left with won't taste great by any means, and you'll be left with Bambi Legs for more like a couple weeks rather than a couple days without the cryo soup, but you can keep yourself fed this way. We recommend the little bitey ones over the big, venomy ones (they give a bit of indigestion). Those that explore the garden may stumble upon what looks like a miniature altar placed carefully on the ground: a shoebox sized box, made of metal and encircled by a ring traced deep into the dirt. A hexagon marks the top of the box, and when touched it reads on the HUD as ‘EDIBLE’. Inside are what looks to be clear packets and packets of dead seeds. At the bottom, however, is an opaque packet that initially lets out a puff of white dust when opened. It might freak you out, but it will prove to be harmless-- and the reward might be worth the minor scare: the hexagon on the packet, acting like a QR code, similar to the one on the outside of the box, explains that these are seeds for genetically altered potatoes. They might not taste great, but with a little extra care they can grow within 2 weeks. There’s a hundred seeds at least, and most of them appear to be viable. ⬡ Assist the Droids; The won't talk, but they do beep and boop and shove things at your person to hold. If you're unwilling to help with anything else going on, you'll be assigned as a glorified pack-mule. Hold whatever the droids give you, hold it right there, hold it steady, and if you get shocked because you moved too much to the left, well, you really only have yourself to blame. Keep a mind to where your feet are falling as well - stepping on a droid zooming past will not only be likely to get you knocked on your ass, but probably earn you an short, sharp, electric shock from them as well. Good luck, have fun, try not to die because Ripley's exhausted from waking you up, and the droids suck at first aid— not to mention, very stiff bedside manner. SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS; ⬡ [ DAY 001 - 005 ] Currently, there is no access to any proper crew quarters or barracks. The Ring is likely the best place to sleep, given the space and the various park benches scattered around, though not the most comforting, as it’s large and shadowy, with unsettling echos bouncing off the walls and traveling all throughout. A VIIK spontaneously malfunctioning could jolt a person awake with violent screams, or invade their dreams with creeping, hissing whispers. If you happen to hear something tapping along in the dark corners of the massive Ring in the night, surely it’s just a droid going about its work, or another glitchy kiosk, right? Right. Ripley recommends returning to the cryo pods for sleep. They’re very ergonomic, well insulated, and perfectly out of the way of all foot and droid traffic. Just a little bit slimy, but as we’ve discussed, that slime is the most nutrient rich substance you’ll find on the ship. Easy midnight snack, right? If you happen to wake up in the middle of the night and think you spot a human-shaped shadow hovering over you through the glass lid of the pod, just blink hard a time or two, and it’ll be gone. No worries at all, safe and sound. Otherwise, find a nice little corner and curl up. GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM; ⬡ [ DAY 003 ] While Projection is not yet available, all HOST bodies share free access to a neural network through which they can communicate via text, audio, or video. One of the first things the HOST platform will prompt the new mind housed inside it will be to set up a sequence of finger taps to open up the network HUD. The system is fairly intuitive, and all one need do is reach up a hand to touch the option they wish to select. For text, a keyboard overlay will appear in the HOST's visual perception, and, dy default, all messages will show: a name, a username, and an ID code. Feel free to make these up as you like. These can be adjusted, and a HOST can post anonymously to the network as well (no guarantees Ripley can't trace it back to the origin, but she's not going to tell). There are no real rules on the usage of this network, aside from don't try to hack your friends, or your not-friends (just don't hack anyone, okay, it's rude). Ripley does understand the human need to socialize, especially in trying and stressful circumstances, so have at it kids. On the third day, once everyone’s woken up, Ripley will be making one quick announcement that she will not be capable of replying to just yet - waking you jerks up took a lot out of her, so give her some time. The voice that you hear doesn't come through any speaker or intercom around you, nor is it originating from any of the bodies or droids nearby. You hear what sounds like a young girl speaking as if inside your head, and she sounds exhausted: ❝ ATTENTION ALL CREW: This is Ripley. While I realize abduction and consciousness displacement is frowned upon in many human societies, please understand this was an emergency protocol enacted at the last possible moment. You have questions. I will answer as best as I'm able, as much as I'm able, but much of the data you're looking for has suffered massive corruption, held in a type of quarantine. The most important thing you need to know is that you, and all organic life within the multiverse, are being hunted. The mission of this vessel is to protect and preserve what remains of that life. Take time to acclimate to your new platforms. We'll talk more later. Ripley out. ❞ BLOW OUT IN THE SHIP HULL (NOT A SPACE PORN TITLE (THIS TIME)); ⬡ [ DAY 004 ] Somewhere around three am (according to the time listed on your HUD, if you pull it up), an explosion rocks the ship, jolting the crew awake. A rapid, whooshing sound can be heard for a second or two, like wind whipping passed an open door, but it’s shut up quickly, with a metal door dropping down somewhere in the halls, a metallic thud echoing. Those choosing to sleep further into the ship, in the halls past the Ring, likely feel a sharp chill pass through the air around them, frigid. Seconds later, Ripley’s voice comes on through the network. ❝ EMERGENCY ALERT, ALL CREW: Hull breach detected in Level 16 Maintenance Hall Airlock. Droids in the area are... unresponsive. No external threat detected. Please report — ❞ Is that a tinge of fear and fatigue in her synthetic voice? Directions are given to the maintenance closet holding the gear for space walks, but every question directed to Ripley about the cause are only met with “inconclusive” and further repeated instruction to seal the breach for the safety of the ship. Questions about the droids will be redirected the the same answer: please check the hole in her side ASAP, Ripley currently has no eyes in that section of the ship. The closer crew gets to the damaged site, the colder the air seems to grow, and the more the shadows around everyone start to flicker, lights buzzing weakly overhead. The droids that initially responded to the threat all appear to be having some issues, either banging into walls or shut down entirely. Attempts to manually break into their system to get them functional will unintentionally force them into an internal security scan loop, which leaves them useless. Stop by the gear room, grab some pistol grip lasers (there will be a handful of these, enough if everyone buddies up) or the larger laser-saw and get ready to do some space welding. Something brushes past your shoulder in the dim light, and you glance to the side, expecting to see another crewmate there, only to find empty space. Maybe you were imagining things? Stepping out of the makeshift airlock Ripley has made out of the hall section just before the breach, gravity immediately shifts, first a vague suggestion, than nothing at all. The door opens, and you’re released into the open space surrounding the ship - coincidentally, your first real view outside of Kostka IV. Yep, sure is a lot of space. All the typical things you’d expect - blackness, distant stars, no planets of note nearby. No one will recognize the star patterns here, as they’re in a completely foreign dimension. There’s also no sign of whatever breached the original airlock. In fact, there’s no sign of the Level 16 Maintenance Hall Airlock at all: beyond the emergency doors of the hall that led to the airlock is nothing, as though the airlock never existed in the first place. Close examination will yield that the internal walls are now covered in the same metallic material as the outer shell, the whole area an almost perfectly shaped indent in the side of the ship. Almost. There are some cracks in the metal, enough to question the stability of the outer hull. Observant folks might notice that it looks like the damage blew outward rather than inward. If you followed the instructions in the gear room and were able to find a safety cable to secure to the makeshift airlock door. They should provide a lifeline back to the ship-- especially for those that swear they see another suit exiting an airlock from an upper level, about 80 meters away, their safety line hanging uselessly in the void, disconnected from the ship. You might point this out to whoever is close by, though there’s no guarantee that they see it too. Turn your head or blink and the figure is gone. Those unlucky enough to spot the lone spaceman will find their tethers suddenly snap, broken by some unseen force. If you’re especially unlucky, you’re not particularly close to the airlock when this happens. The suits do have small jets to aid in propelling yourself back to the ship, if you’re confident in how to use them without making the situation worse. Otherwise, it’s up to your crewmates to give you a hand. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS HOSTILE TAKE-OVER; ⬡ [ DAY 004 ] While the breach in the hull is being repaired, things are going wrong elsewhere on the ship. Environmental Control has locked itself down, the room apparently empty of all crew at the time. Putting an ear to the door, you can hear something or someone moving around inside the room, feet shuffling, a clatter as they bump into tables, a tapping at the keyboards. There’s perhaps even mumbling, but it’s too indistinct to make out any words, or maybe you’re just imagining it? Regardless of who or what is on the other side of the door, the controls start to go awry. All through the ship, the temperature fluctuates, from a brisk chill to a deadly icy cold, or even a heat that feels like boiling. On top of that, air is thinning, starting to slowly suffocate the rest of the ship. You have roughly five hours to get that door open, deal with whatever’s inside, and right the control settings before people start to pass out. Ripley is entirely out of touch during this crisis, and the droids are unresponsive, caught in a loop of internal security checks. You’re on your own. There’s a few options here: 1) Climb through the vents. There is one that a small, skinny person or two could wiggle through that drops out from the east wall of the room. The problem here is the fans, which seem to be turning on and off irregularly. Disabling them is possibly by wedging something strong in between the blades, but you’ll have to carry enough for the four fans you’ll have to pass through by to get to the room. Each blast of air from them is powerful enough to knock anyone inside a few meters back and will greatly impede travel, if not completely toss you out of the vent. Fortunately, the pattern isn’t as irregular as it seems at first: anyone inside the vents should be able to count out a two minute interval between each blast that should allow them just enough time to get from one safe section of the vent to the next, squeezing past the fans while they are temporarily immobile. Should you miscalculate your time and end up stuck between two fans, you’ll end up caught in the blades of the fan behind you. While that may not kill you, there will most definitely be blood. 2) Override the keypad. ( CW: BODY HORROR ELEMENTS ) If anyone had been feeling chafed by Ripley cramping their techno-wiz style, now’s your time to shine. Break that bitch open and start fiddling. What you’ll find inside the keypad is… odd. The original, fairly mundanely designed wiring for the keypad is appears to be overgrown with what can only be described as a rat’s nest of extra wires that don’t seem to do anything in particular. You’ll have to cut past them to get to the wires that actually control the doors, but just like weeds, if you chop them off at the middle without pulling them from their roots, they’ll grow back with a vengeance - and in real time, and will start to overrun the keypad. They may even take a liking to your new body, latching on and trying to dig beneath your skin. While physically alarming, as far as you can tell they don’t do any damage to you. If you’re a patient and careful gardener, you should be able to eventually prune past the unruly wires and get to the actual controls beneath. 3) Lastly, you can try laser-sawing through the door. In the same gear storage room the space walk suits came from were all the tools used to repair the breach in the hull. Some of them are capable of cutting through the kind of steel the interior doors are made of, so it’s a matter of figuring out which ones. Try not to blow yourself up. This option will take the longest, nearly four hours, so maybe start early and use it as a back-up in case all other options fail. Regardless of which route gets you in, when the door is finally open, or you get a glimpse down through the vent grate, crew will spot a vague shadow of something humanoid hovering over a console, though distorted, as if blurred at the edges, or like pieces of it are fading in and out. Whether or not the observing crew has made their presence know, the shadow seems to realize they’re there, and its “head” jerks up, before letting out a piercing, inhuman sounding scream that’s somehow so loud and violent that characters have to cover their ears to protect against the pain of it, while their vision blurs, fading in and out for a small handful of seconds. Once blinking it clear, the shadow is no longer there, and the room is free. Get in there and put the settings back to default, please. THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING; ⬡ [ DAY 005 ] Ripley will be making an open network post that all characters will be able to respond to for questions, conversation, shooting the space shit, you know, whatever you fancy. She’s finally done being busy and has decided to pay attention to you squishy little fleshbag things. This will be done in a separate network post, not included on the intro log. We just wanted to let you guys know that it’s coming. Please send all QUESTIONS here! » NAVIGATION «

Comments

Dean Winchester | Supernatural

[righteously]

GOOD MORNING

[ Dean Winchester is, alarmingly, very calm when he wakes up within the cabled confines of a pod. He's horizontal instead of vertical, but being suspended in liquid sans gravity behind a glass case has become a routine experience. He's calm when the cables retract, calm when the liquid slowly trickles out, calm when he emerges from it stark naked with his hair plastered to his forehead and his body weak.

Calm, but confused. Fingers curl around the edge so he can haul himself up to seated, staring out and around at faces both familiar and unfamiliar, brow scrunched up and voice raspy.

He calls out to the first person he sees with a sharp, gruff: ]

Hey!

[ And then a jerk of his head. C'mere. Come over here. Yeah, you come on.

Blearily, the first question he asks: ]

When the hell'd we redecorate?

BLOW OUT

[ Dean's been chugging pod goo like it's his job. Straight up drinking it from a coffee mug everywhere he goes like his stomach is bottomless, and as a result his legs are more or less back in action by the time they get the alarm. He's not even asleep at the time, so it takes a grand total of five minutes before he's donning a suit and tethering himself up.

He's done this before. Welding, space walking, the whole nine. He knows first hand exactly how friggin' dangerous it can be to leave that big ass hole in the side of the ship unattended, so he doesn't even bother with the buddy system. He just goes, hooked up via eighty feet of steel cable to a chunk of floating metal in the middle of the blackness of a void.

He's got his welding gear in a pack on hand, scrap metal being passed over by a well-meaning droid, pumping jams through his HUD as he solders metal to metal like this is just another Tuesday.

He doesn't even notice his cable snap until the broken end slowly drifts by his face.

He freezes, and if anyone were around they might pick up the cursing muffled by his glass visor. A low, horrified: ]

...son of a bitch.

I'm making my own wild card, also get your 4th walling

[accountability]

[ There's at least one guy at the get go who seems to be comfortable wielding the welding laser. Steve's been watching him from a slight distance for a few minutes, his own hands empty, sticking to watching the backs of those who are working rather than getting busy himself. There's only so many of the tools to go around, and for now he figures they're better left in the hands of those who know what they're doing.

He steps closer, into Dean's view but no so close that he's in the laser's path. ]

Mind giving me a few pointers?

[ The audio will likely get beamed directly into Dean's head, which he'd apologize for if they had any other options. Four days in and he still doesn't appreciate the concept.

But, if Dean's willing to do some narrating while he works, Steve would appreciate the knowledge. ]

good morning, sunshine

[shove]

( dean may be remaining calm, but jason is anything but. he's just managed to get a sheet wrapped around him enough to be decent and turned tail back around to try and figure out what the hell is going on. his throat hurts, his legs aren't staying where they should be, but he's managing not to fall flat on his face.

somehow.

when he hears dean's voice, his neck snaps to attention. turns to look at him through squinted eyes before his expression scrunches up even further. )

The fuck're you talking about?

[cicatrize]

[ uneasy as jack is with this place, he'd had about the same enthusiasm with the pod goo, eager to get back on his feet and functional before shit hit the fan. and it always does at some point, with these places, doesn't it? kostka screams it so much louder than duplicity ever did, but given their last stay at the fort, jack wants his ability to make a run for it secure and viable.

but, jack knows fuck all about space engineering or welding, so he's mostly just here to do whatever the hell he's told. and, you know, eavesdrop on dean's jams. he's keeping his hands aggressively on the ship, too new to this whole thing to feel safe letting completely go, and that has nothing to do with cables snapping at all, yet.

when he hears the curse, alarm sets off in his head, jack's attention snapping up, expecting to see some kind of blackhole on the horizon or alien eating someone's face or something horrific. the free flying cable is much more understated, but equally as urgent. ]

Shit... [ jack hisses, pushing the tool he'd had in his hands over against dean's chest - hold that for a sec, thanks - before he's moving, hooking a boot into the lip of the metal they'd been welding and stretching out as far as he can. jack only barely catches the cable before it floats those couple inches past either of their grasp, stretching out until just the toe of his boot is clinging to the edge of the ship, but he gets it.

and pancakes himself against the hull once more so freaking fast its comical. sweet baby jewish not-jesus, space is terrifying. so... what do we do with this cable now, friend?? ] I'd say tie yourself to my line, but... [ but the same thing could just happen again, and they'd both be screwed. ]

steve rogers | marvel cinematic universe

[accountability]

a. GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM; ( DAY 3 )

ATTENTION ALL CREW: This is Ripley-- [ He goes still, turning to face a voice that isn't there. Different than the last one

Two vague messages in three days. She's clearer, no distortion, which is something.

He's in the O2 garden, helping to dig small holes in the dirt around one of the areas partially cleared out of hostile plant forces. Space potatoes. Someone found seeds, so that's what they're planting. Not thrilled about another extended potato diet in his life, but they need a more stable food supply, and quick. He gave into the nutrient slime that first day, weighing the pros and cons of ingesting the stuff versus struggling with his limbs in an unknown environment. Chose option one. ]

Consciousness displacement, that's one word for it. [ He says under his breath to no one in particular, digging another small, deep hole in the dirt with gloved hands. ] Wouldn't mind talking more now--

[ Something rustles in the leaves at his 9 o'clock. His reflexes still aren't what they ought to be, his body sluggish. It throws off his response, and he only just catches the half dead chomper that'd been hiding in the nearby overgrowth as it lunges for him. His fingers catch some teeth, slicing through the gloves. It's fast but frail, and in his hand he hears a dry snap, despite his lack of exertion, and the head comes clean off it's stem. He frowns at it in his palm for a moment, crushed like a flower between pages (if that flower had a mouth full of teeth) and sets it gently in the dirt.

If they're gonna take the last two messages at face value, who knows, maybe these vicious weeds are the last of their kind. The thought has him looking somber as he inspects the bleeding cut on his hand. Red and coppery.

Take time to acclimate to your new platforms. ]

b. BLOW OUT IN THE SHIP HULL ( DAY 4, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE )

[ He's a light sleeper. Even if he wasn't, he's already awake when the alert goes off.

Never been in space before, but neither have most of the crew, far as he's been able to gather.

He straps into one of the suits provided for them, making sure to go over the instructions. There's a sense of urgency around him. The droids are eerily quiet, and the ones that aren't...

... he dodges out of the way of one of them as it slams into the wall at his left.

He can smell his own sweat as the airlock door opens for the first time, and he gets a look at all that wide, open darkness.

For whoever partners up with him, he'll either stay near the airlock with an eye forward, keeping watch for whatever set off the alert, or he'll be wielding the welding laser. Learning on the job. ]

c. WILD CARD

(what it says on the tin, hmu with whatever!)

( OOC: Here is my TDM top level. I'm happy to keep or continue any threads there or on this log! For the BLOW OUT IN THE SHIP HULL option, I left it open so whoever wants to partner with him can either do the welding or the investigating, and start at the beginning or middle of the spooky space times, so fill in the blanks however works best for your character. )

wilde carde

[freightcars]

[ By the time the general population is stabilized and up to speed, by the time the world has calmed down from chaos and they find themselves "off duty", Barnes is exhausted. Everyone is, he thinks, thanks to what he's been mentally calling "pod fatigue" in the privacy of his own head. People pair off if they're fortunate enough to have a friend to rely on, small groups form around the ring as people bundle up with fresh sheets and rolled up jumpsuits for pillows where they can.

Bucky has absolutely not been hovering around Steve. It might seem that way given the fact that he's rarely gone out of eye sight, considering he silently takes to creating a bedroll not five or ten feet from where Steve seems to be setting up his own, but he'll fight tooth and nail saying he's not hovering.

It's unrelated.
Coincidence.
Practical.
It's for safety.
It's space, he can't be blamed for it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the tightness in his chest gripping at his heart and his lungs every time he catches sight of the guy out of the corner of his eye. They haven't talked, they haven't finished their discussion, and he begs off of it for a little while longer. Stalling, maybe, but it's a talk that'll take a few hours. More mental energy than he's got when he tucks in.

He's out like a light as soon as he slings a flesh arm over his eyes.

It doesn't even feel like he fell asleep, feels like it's been less than ten minutes when he springs up abruptly, hairs on the back of his neck standing up, eyes wide and alert, adrenaline coursing and body sweating.

It's an almost wild panic, convinced that there's a threat without knowing why until he hears for a second time what must have woken him up the first- a tapping, or a clicking, almost like fingernails on the wall. Or maybe like heels. Claws. He doesn't know, can't place it, but his eyes dart to Steve the instant he hears it again. ]

a.

[tempestes]

( Zoya absolutely refuses to eat the slime. the slime disgusts her in so many ways, from ruining her hair that she's barely got into a manageable look currently, to just outright feeling disgusting to touch. she imagines it slipping down her throat and nearly gags on the thought. she may be reduced to a bambi of an otkazat'sya, but she has limits to how far she will willingly fall.

thought willing is starting to become the key term here.

she's weak in general from her new body, but hunger is also ramming against the prison of her body. sheer willpower alone holds it at bay as best she can. the most recent announcement helps. she sinks into the thought experiment placed before them by the reality that is their current existence when she hears the man she's been working nearby struggle.

she turns to catch him killing one of those creatures and gingerly set it down, her stomach growling a very loud sound as a thought occurs to her. )

I bet we could eat that. ( she eyes the now dead plant.

she's ignoring the repulsion at how she's reduced to this for now. )

Will Graham | Hannibal

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ooc: Keeping these prompts for Will's initial waking up as well as maintenance.

Waking up is wrapped but the maintenance prompt is still open! ]

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS;

[ Nothing short of physical force was going to get Will back into that damn cryo pod. For the first night at least, the benches in the Ring seemed like the best option. They were off the floor and not a cryo pod.

Safe bet right?

Will was deep asleep when the first whispers began. His mind was quick to morph the whispers into physical shapes, the ash like figures of Hobbs and other victims of both the Ripper and Will himself. Hidden deep in shadows they hissed softly, which was odd because usually Will could understand -all too well- what they were saying.

But in this dream all he could hear was the unintelligible breath of whispers. When he tried to get closer, the figures faded back into deep shadows and a sharp clicking sound kept Will from trying to go any further.

On the bench, Will flinched and twitched. Nothing particularly violent, at least not until the VIIK malfunctioned. In his dream the whispers from the shadows suddenly switched to screams as the ash figures crowded around him, trapping him. Above them all reared the familiar head of the Wendigo, horns clicking with bones dangling from them.

Will himself didn't scream. He never screamed coming out of his nightmares. But he did startle awake with a sharp gasp and threw himself off the bench as he tried to escape the dream visions that were all too real; even awake.

He wasn't on his feet, but he definitely might have become a trip hazard in the low light. ]

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS HOSTILE TAKE-OVER

[ He didn't even own a tablet back on Earth. Trying to muck around with alien computer technology was not something Will was interested in attempting.

However, though he may be computer inept, he was both small and relatively skinny while also being fit enough to scurry through the vents. At least he thought he was fit enough.

For the second time in as many attempts Will was tumbled back out of the vent when the fan kicked over and blasted him clear of the entrance. He'd been holding his position, trying to discern if he was right in the assumption that there was a pattern to the on and off of the fan, when the fan had kicked on and Will went tumbling.

He spilled out of the mouth of the vent and went sprawling across the decking. It was a rough landing, enough to briefly knock the wind out of him, but he avoided hitting his head.

Small mercies. ]

I'd really like to wake up now.

Wildcard!

[OOC: Want to poke at something that isn't in one of the prompts above? Hit me!

ETA Another plug for Will's Opt-In/Permission post.]

sleep.

[lie]

[ It's been ten, maybe fifteen minutes since Natasha woke up. Fifty minutes or so every other hour during a select period. It's enough that she feels better, but not quite rested; she sleeps lightly, back propped up against one of the low-wall railings found all over the upper decks. She's heard a lot, so far. Strange splashes in the water; screaming shapes, malfunctioning glitches. She keeps a tight lid on what her paranoia wants from her and closes her eyes.

She hears rather than sees Will fall, and her eyes snap open again. It's a noise that's a little new, beyond the shrieks and the flickering and the steady inhale and exhale that comes when someone else is resting. Natasha's there easily, though doesn't reach out to touch him. Just crouches right out of frame, steady and nearby. ]

That looks like it hurt.

[ Quiet, low. Natasha reroutes some of her energy into shifting her body language, letting the tension reshape into something non-threatening. Her mouth cuts into a small smile. Mild, but lightly blank. ]

You okay?

environmental control

[shuckit]

Story of my life.

[ murmured by the teenage boy that's standing over will when he looks up from the ground, holding out a hand to help haul him up. whether or not he takes it, thomas won't be bothered, more interested in the vents themselves.

pacing over, thomas pokes his head into the vents, glancing down the tunnel, but not quite getting in the way of the fan yet. hmmm. it goes off in the normal patter for a while, but something seems different. tugging at his laces, thomas pulls a boot off his foot. ]

Gonna test something. [ toss, in goes the boot, and a second latter BRRRRR, on goes the fan and right back out comes be boot, nearly smacking thomas in the face. ]

It's timed, and has a motion sensor.

Nikolai Lantsov (Sturmhond) | Grishaverse

[sturmhond]

i. Wake up in the Morning with a Head like What You Done

---

[ It's like dying.

No, like being dead, and waking up again. The opposite of dying. Maybe it's like birth? Who knows. At any rate, it's like dying, but in reverse, and comes with that awful sensation of drowning. No doubt it's frightening, to some people. Most people. But then, most people don't experience it on a daily basis.

The mask is new, though. And then there's that message. That's what tells him something is really wrong.

Nikolai's emergence from the tank is relatively peaceful. Getting the mask off - and out of - him generates a lot of coughing and spluttering, and maybe the occasional ungentlemanly curse word. But he's fine. This is fine. He clambers out of the tank, covered in slime, and almost falls back down again. He clutches the edge of it, and that's when he sees his hands. The black lines are gone. ]

It's...gone?

[ Saints, his voice sounds terrible. He coughs, and looks down at his chest. The star-shaped scar over his heart is still there. The scar on his palm is still there, too, and the one on his thigh. All star-shaped stab marks. All present and accounted for, but the black ones on his fingers are gone. And the feeling of darkness inside of him... ]

Gone. [ He actually laughs. Then he laughs some more, and tries to haul himself upright. His legs aren't ready to cooperate yet. He's also still entirely naked, and he only really starts to care about that once he realises he's not alone in the room. Then there's a scramble to cover himself, and he falls to the floor altogether. Damn. He looks up, awkward smiles all around. ]

Believe me, I'm usually much more graceful. Terrible first impression. I don't suppose any of you might pass me a towel?

ii. These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For

---

[ He's on the floor. Cross-legged, dressed in the horrific orange jumpsuit which clashes horribly with his hair, he is hard at work. There's a droid in his grasp, struggling to get away from him while he pins his legs around it and tries to get its top off. That's the scene for approximately three seconds, before it lets off a small EMP to knock him flat to the ground. Then it darts off, thoroughly glad to be rid of him.

He's twenty-something, attractive if you enjoy the golden blond, chiseled cheekbones, improbably tidy despite being sprawled on the floor, sort of look. He's entirely still for a few brief moments, and then with a gasp, he's waking up. He looks around in confusion, then clambers to his feet, sharp hazel eyes scouring the corridor. ]

Blasted thing. [ Despite that, he sounds delighted. And he's grinning. ] I almost had its head off.

[ This is the third time today. One might imagine Nikolai would learn from these experiences, and he has. He has learned that the little brats are faster than they've any right to be, and also that this new body has vulnerabilities his old one did not. It's still an upgrade, given his circumstances, but still. He flicks dust off his shoulder. ]

Which way did it go?

iii. Music of the Night

---

[ It's difficult to tell the difference between night and day on this ship. Nikolai is not new to that particular phenomenon, and he's not pleased about experiencing it again. At least this time his body seems to know time is passing; he gets hungry, he gets tired, he gets at least somewhat nourished by the slime, and the vegetables in the garden.

But sleeping is an issue. It would help if there were more comfortable arrangements. He'd returned to the pods, but his eyes had barely been closed before he'd seen a shadow looming over him. After that happened the third time, he'd given up on the notion of sleep. Now he's wandering the corridors, feeling the worse for wear and lamenting his missing eiderdown. He is careful not to disturb anyone who's actually managed to sleep, but since he's given up hope of it, he settles beside a panel that the droids have recently been working on. He doesn't actually know what he's doing with these wires, but experimentation tends to yield results. It's not long before he gets engrossed in it. Don't mind him. A few sparks might fly from what he's doing every so often, but that only seems to please him more. ]

So this one is live. Now if I could find how it connects--

iv. Star Trekkin Across the Universe

---

[ This isn't going to plan.

Of course, the moment the opportunity to walk in space was offered, he was going to take it. He's been desperate to get outside ever since he knew they were here. Besides that, he considers himself skilled enough to be somewhat useful in repairing the damage, even though it's evident to him that there must be danger on the ship. He's ready to work, but he also takes a brief, passing moment to look at the stars all around them. They're really here. He's really among those stars.

And then he's too much among them, because he's floating free, and that hadn't been part of the plan at all. ]

Saints. [ He mutters, and casts around, only to see that the others are floating as well. Danger on the ship. He should have dealt with that first. Still, he's not actually panicking; it's hardly the first time he's found himself adrift at sea. He doesn't let himself panic, and instead finds the controls for the little thrusters in his suit. This, happily, gets him moving - though it also sends him in a tailspin towards one of his floating comrades.

Oops. ]

I have you! [ He announces, as if this was the intention all along. Heroism is edifying. No doubt they'll all be glad of it later. ] Now, homeward bound.

[ And they skitter off in the opposite direction. Don't worry. Any minute now, he'll get the hang of this. ]

v. CREATE YOUR OWN

---

[ Prompt Nikolai! I'm available on plurk for plotting at halfbloodly ]

iii.

[accountability]

How's it looking in there?

[ The question is called out from one of the many men on the ship dressed in an jumpsuit. This one is bearded, his hair a little long, the figure under all that orange athletic. He's walking down the corridor toward the younger man and his work, eyeing the sparks coming out of the panel with a combination of genuine curiosity and caution in his sharp gaze.

Sleep's not easy. ]

Adrien Arbuckal | Original Character

[prorenataa]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

[ Over the years Adrien Arbuckal had experienced many rude and confusing awakenings. Some he expected to be challenging, others came as not so pleasant surprise. But there had been hundreds of them.

So when he finally pulled himself free of the tube down his throat and the wires attached to his body, he exited his cryo pod with calm grace and dignity.

Naaaahhh

He was experienced enough with the control of his own body that he recognized the need to not fling himself out of the pod, were his legs even awake yet?? Otherwise he sat up, looked around the unfamiliar cryo bay with an annoyed glare, took in his naked state, and then shouted out. ]

What fresh fucking Fates is this shit?!? I mean really, not even a Fates damned paper gown?!?


MAINTENANCE - O2 Garden

[ Well. This was standard operating procedure. In so far as it was a fucked up situation with mostly unknowns rather than knowns. Which meant first things first.

Take stock of what they had, what they needed and what they could make work for them in this fuck hole.

Adrien had initially considered tackling the medical bay, it was habit by now, but a quick review of their food, water and shelter situations redirected his attention. As there were people on this rust bucket who appeared to be on the ball and taking care of the water situation, Adrien decided to go and investigate the gardens.

The enormity of the overgrowth caused him to stand in the doorway with his arms crossed, glowering. He missed Courser, not the least for which he could have used the tracker's keen nose to work out what sort of plants they might have in here.

Well there was nothing for it but to inventory the place the hard way.

Grumbling Adrien began to work his way methodically through the space. For the most part he was a small thundercloud of 'fuck off' but when a squat pinkies plant tried to take a bite out of his ankle, he drew back and actually smiled. ]

Aren't you an adorable little shit. [ Rather than drawing back, Adrien hunkered down on his heels for a closer look. ] What's the point of you, hmm? You remind me of Smiles. Would you like to be called Smiles Jr?

[ The plant, sensing movement as the air shifted, gave another eager snap, causing the taciturn -until now- man to actually laugh. ]

BLOW OUT IN THE SHIP HULL

[ Adrien was on his feet and heading in the direction of the explosion before his conscious brain fully caught up with his kinetic muscle memory. He listened attentively to Ripley's disembodied voice, taking a moment to orient himself and then continuing a hard run towards Level 16.

The cold didn't bother him, beyond making note of its presence, but Adrien did slow down when he spied the droids. They were annoying little devices but they were efficient. Seeing them tumble about was discordant enough to catch and hold his attention for a couple precious seconds.

He felt the brush against his shoulder, assumed it was a crew member and began to run towards the gear room without bothering to look back and confirm who was -or wasn't- there. As he surveyed the equipment on hand, Adrien's hands began to reach for the larger laser saw. ]

Any of you assholes certified on this equipment or are we all faking it?

[ He reached to tug on the larger saw and ... yeah, that felt like it was going to definitely be a two person job.

ooc: Adrien will see the crew member floating away, which means his line will snap. He is actually space jet certified at this point, and could walk other 'snapped line' crew members back to the ship if anyone would like? Just give me a heads up in the tag comment! ]

Wildcard:
[OOC: Want an encounter that doesn't fit into any of the above prompts? I'd love one also, come at me! ]

blow out

[cicatrize]

[ jack doesn't immediately answer the man as he's strapping himself into an evosuit, readying to follow this AIs instructions to go float around into a cold, lifeless abyss and probably die, because no one immediately answers adrien's question. at least, no one that happens to be in the vicinity. we can always hope someone actually experienced is either lagging behind, or already out there.

as for jack, he's setting the helmet into place, raising the visor, and glancing back and around, before he grabs up a smaller tool (not the massive laser-saw, he'll go for some welding nonsense instead). ]

That would be a resounding 'faking it'.

[ welp. but they do have Ripley on comms, so hopefully they'll get some kind of walkthrough. assuming she doesn't start glitching out like the droids did. also, guys, let's try not to die, heyoooo. ]

natasha romanoff | mcu

[lie]

—DAY 02 / SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS (0624HRS)

[ First full day in space. Natasha might have ruminated on that for a little while, if she'd felt like spending energy on it. Instead, she's been carving out time for snatches of sleep; an hour here and an hour there, enough to be functional, too risky to remain still for extended periods of time in a place so empty and large and foreign. The scalpel she'd pocketed sits tucked into her boot. It's less comforting than she'd thought it would be, which is annoying. She already misses her tac-suit.

The Ring is expansive, large, and an infinitely better place to sleep than back in the cryogenics deck. The air is cool and strange here, like the murky-dark of the water's expanded up and out into even the oxygen. Natasha's taken up a spot a floor or two up from the main platform. It must have been some sort of viewing level; there's thin tendrils of some sort of dormant ivory that's wound its way across the balcony's retaining wall, framed by skinny, overgrown trees and a VIIK display that glitches, painting half of it in an eerie blue light. Natasha takes in a deep breath and stares down at her mug, which is blue and goopy and decidedly cold.

Nearby, there's a catch of movement. Someone startling awake, maybe. Natasha knows the feeling. ]

Hey.

[ She calls out. Her tone's mild, voice loud enough to carry a little but not too much in a place this expansive. ] Breakfast? [ There's a spare mug, balanced on top of the balcony wall. It might be more appetizing if it looked hot and smelled like coffee, but hey. Space. ]

—DAY 04 / ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS

[ The lights are flickering, and the cold's starting to bite through the jumpsuit. There's already a few laser-marks in the door that have barely burned through; a few wires dangle lifelessly from a corner of the keypad, evidence of attempts but no successes. Natasha's shoulders are tight, drawn in, her energy diverted into assessing the situation rather than keeping herself measured, arms folded across her chest. Efficiency, now, overrides her overwhelming sense of paranoia. Both have their dues, and both have kept her alive this far.

Her eyes turn blue for a quick second, fingers tapping and crossing over the other, and then the glow of her irises fades. She tips her head up, clocking the vent nearby. Frowns at that, too, doing some kind of mental math she's not intent on sharing.

There's a long beat of silence. She hears footsteps, doesn't bother turning. Mildly, ]

Thoughts?

—WILDCARD

[ Your plotting option! Feel free to PM, discord, or pp me, especially if we discussed something; I can make you a subthread to get some things kickstarted if you want 'em. For reference, the waking up portion of her arrival is located here at the TDM. ]

DAY 04

[freightcars]

Looks like you might already be a step ahead of me.

[ He points out, flicking his eyes up to the vent she'd just been clocking herself. It spans about an inch wider than the length of her shoulders, plenty of room for her to get in. A glance down at his own metal left arm silently points out that he sure as hell ain't gonna fit, probably wouldn't even if they detached it. What is he, maybe two of her as far as shoulder width goes? More?

He crosses his arms over the white t-shirt he's got exposed, jumpsuit sleeves tied around his waist, left sleeve torn completely off the shirt because it keeps snagging on the metal. She's freezing, but he feels like he's burning the hell up. ]

They got the vent mapped out. If you're up to it I can talk you through it.

tommy boi (thomas) | puzzle hell 3: friendship is agony (the maze runner)

[shuckit]

GOOD MORNING;

[ his first instinct is panic - thomas's still limbs wanting to jerk and thrash and pound at the glass above his head - but that isn't the first action. he's rigid, eyes wide in the tinted fluid as they skim from one side to the other. fear screams through his mind, but if thomas has learned anything in the three or four months worth of memory he has, it's that losing it always makes it worse. the woman speaks up inside his head, and thomas pays rapt attention as the fluid drains, trying to memorize every syllable of it. it'll be important later.

they always start like this. they make you bleary, confused, and afraid, and throw you out into hell to see if you're one of the ones that can get their wits around them, adapt and recover quick enough to survive. anger burns in thomas, hot and fierce, because he'd told them - that's enough, no more, and yet, here he is.

But Ripley? They never added in sob stories before. not really, not so directly.

the pod cracks open, and thomas goes from still to near punching it the rest of the way open, yanking at cables and the mask on his face, gagging as it comes up his throat (maybe throwing up a little, ew). there's not much room for dignity here, and thomas doesn't seek it, going straight into attempts to walk, only to have his knees go out and face-plant onto the floor again. somewhere down a long hall, he can see a brighter light, and people milling around.

so, here's this bare-assed teenager, army crawling his lame ass across a gross, fluid slick floor, calling out in a raspy voice: ]

Pen— [ for a writing utensil. ] Anybody got a pen?

[ he has needs, and they're called data integrity. he'll only remember that message he heard for so long, and he needs to get it written down before it's gone, someone get him a goddamn pen and some paper. or, you know, a sheet. to cover up his naked ass while he worms across the floor.]

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS;

[ like hell he's going back in those pods. no offense, ripley and droids and dimitri, you guys all seem very well meaning despite how probably space crazy you are, but frankly: fuck that noise.

with a scalpel curled one first and a crowbar leaned against his chest like a teddy bear, thomas has curled himself up into a small, huddled ball of a teenage boy in the corner inside the storage vault, at a vantage point where he could pretty easily skim the room around him just by blinking his eyes open. should anyone come in behind him and switch off the lights he left on (emergency power, so it's dim, but at least it's light), it'll near immediately wake him, and thomas will let out an annoyed huff before pushing himself up, pacing back to the light switch, and turning it back on. between the glade and the scorch, he's become and incredibly light sleeper, not only for the hyper-awareness, but the fact his subconscious doesn't let rest too deeply.

even still, eyes closed and features neutral, no movement in his frame, there's horrors playing on the backs of his eyelids. the grievers, the sickening squelch and screeching of them. jack in the scorch, in the lightening storm, can't even hear his voice over the wind, but he can see where his legs end, the darkness where his eyes used to be in his sockets. the haunting buzz of a saw close by his ear. something spurns him, and thomas wakes with a violent jerk, legs kicking out, body going from lax to rigid and sitting up straight, eyes peering wide around the room. ]

The hell? [ he heard something. he could've sworn he heard something. glancing around, he looks to the closest person that seems somewhat (maybe) awake. ] Hey. Did you see anything?

[ were you even awake before the kid next to you starting jerking around in his almost-sleep? ]

ENVIRONMENT CONTROL (VENTS);

[ once it's clear the door isn't coming open, and the keypad looks like it'll take some time, thomas is off, pacing around, running a hand along the dirty walls in the hall that surrounds the control room, peering up and down, up and down - there it is. a vent. it takes some prying and some teamwork to get it open, but he and whoever else had the same idea manage it.

of course, once it's open, it takes about ten seconds of thomas peering in, glancing one way and the other, before he's just crawling right the hell in.

because he's a dumbass.

he's also a scrawny teenager, so he fits pretty nicely, and he'd assumed no one else was feeling thrilled about digging around in the creepy spaceship's guts, so yeah, fine, he'll do it. get it over with, before they start boiling, right? and maybe, just maybe, it's a little bit about rampant, insatiable curiosity, but we're not going to mention that part right now. thomas is already pretty sure most of this crew either thinks he's a useless infant in shock, or completely whacked in the head for as calm as he's been the entire stay on Kostka IV so far. ]

I can hear something like... fans? [ it's an audio message that's sent out to anyone that'd been standing outside the vents (or crawling in after him), acting weirdly like telepathy. that he's also... weirdly comfortable with. he's just kind of a weird kid all around, okay? ] Do you see any controls anywhere?

[ it is possible this is not his first time crawling around in vent shafts. ]

WILD CARD;

[ hit me with whatever, fam, i'm easy ]

wild card; tdm cont'd

[accountability]

previously on...

[ As reluctant as he is to give the kid the more dangerous job, he stifles any argument he might be able to muster in the face of plain and simple physics. As Thomas prepares himself, Steve zips back into his jumpsuit and checks the traction on his boots. With nothing else to stabilize or brace himself against, he'll have to plant himself like a tree. He scuffs the heels against the the floor a few times. Inspects the rope for any damage after that-- and when he's satisfied of its condition he knots it around his waist. The slack gets held in his hands. ]

Got it. [ His answer comes without an ounce of patronizing tone. The kid looks light enough. No telling how hard the fan'll pull, but then, losing a tug of war with the suction isn't an option. He can do it. ]

jacklyn benette (jack benjamin) | bible gays (kings)

[cicatrize]

WAKEY WAKEY EGGS AND PEOPLE SOUP;

[ some people may rouse gradually, coming into awareness gently, keeping their calm about the mask on their face, the fluid around them, and the enclosed space they’re held in.

Jack Benjamin is not one of those people.

He freaks pretty much immediately, once underwater registers, only made worse and worse with the passing of mask, and peaking with hands lifting to slap violently against the plexi-glass sides of the pod when closed, coffin-like space sinks in. it’s not okay. None of it is okay, and this isn’t really Duplicity’s style, but considering he just watched them execute and torture some people the last week or so? It’s hard to say for certain what is anymore.

The cables and nodes pull from his face and torso as he arches up when the pod lid finally gives, the fluid about halfway drained, and Jack lets out a muffled gag when he tries to leap from the device, only to be pulled back by the tube still lodged down his throat. Pulling it free is a mess of croaking, wailing sounds, leaving him a coughing, hacking mess, but free from the tentacle monster of a space-tube he’d just been buried alive in. hauling himself over the edge of the pod, he hits the ground like a newborn foal - ungraceful, covered in nasty fluids, flailing, and severely unhappy to conscious right now.

A droid hovers by, and Jack stretches out an open palm towards it, as if he’s expecting the droid to just... levitate on over to him. When nothing happens, he frowns, shakes his hand, tries it again. Nothing? Nothing. He's broke. ]

That’s fine. That’s great. [ he’ll just lay right here, thanks. Flopping his head back, Jack breathes out slowly, before calling out louder, voice raspy from the tube: ] Management should be informed: this is not the best way to encourage oral.

HULL BREACH FUCKERY;

« There's nothing out here. »

[ jack's first brilliant observation, his voice cracking through the audio filtered into the hull breach teams' HUDs as they secure their safety cables and apprehensively step/float out into the great abyss of nothingness surrounding the ship. he's clinging pretty aggressively to the severed edges of the hull, inspecting them as he goes, murmuring behind the mask of his suit into the open comm link between the lot of them. ]

« How does an entire wall rip off the side of a ship all by itse— »

[ that's when he sees it - another figure, in the same type of suit jack's wearing now, floating through dark space some eighty or so meters away, come from an airlock that's an entirely closed off part of the ship. it sends a chill up jack's spine, the possible implications of it running through his head, wreaking havoc. did the AI lie about their being others on the ship? why can't they talk to them? if they're that's the only other person out here, did they blow out the side of the ship, and if so, how? and why? ]

« We don't have access to that side of the ship. Who is that? »

[ of course, while jack's busy being thoroughly freaked the ever loving fuck out, his safety cable has snapped, and he's gradually, senselessly, floating further and further towards a figure maybe only he sees. ]

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS (commentary from a distance);

[ jack's only barely dragged himself back inside of the ship (fuck space, okay, fuck space) when the others working on getting access to the Environmental Control room finally crack the egg and get inside, only to trigger that unholy shriek that rips through the ship, jack feeling his very skin crawl.

immediately, he sends out a blast audio message, chiming in on everyone's HUDs like telepathy, or one of those horrible MySpace profiles that used to automatically play loud, obnoxious music as soon as the page loaded. hi, it's jack, and by the way, what the fuck? ]

« Did someone rip open a portal to Hell over there? What the fuck was that sound? »

BONUS SHENANIGANS (salvage thievery, for moonshine);

[ maybe you're working on something in the Ring, or getting some supplies out of the storage vault, maybe you're exploring or having a nice stroll, maybe you're just admiring the scenery. at some point, rudely interrupting your peaceful, quiet time, a fellow crewmate, dressed in the same jail-orange as you are, comes sprinting past you, with what looks like a metal pot or bucket, and a section of coiled piping, possibly shoulder-checking you hard as he bolts past. no apology attempted: jack's not that polite on a normal day.

even less so when he's being chased by a small army of droids.

which he is.

a few yards behind him will come the rest of the parade - about five or six droids beeping and booping furiously, with their little zapping appendages wielded and ready to zap, clearly displeased with the thieving of their salvage parts. but jack has a mission. a mission he knows fuck all about, actually (he's working on that, okay, supplies first (at least he has a vague notion of what a still looks like)). ]

The ship won't break apart because you're missing one bucket - calm down!

WILD CARD;

[ hit me with ya best shooooot ]

BONUS SHENANIGANS (salvage thievery, for moonshine);

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ Will happened to be taking a break and ... enjoying the scenery might be a bit of a stretch. Rather he was trying to come to terms with his new normal; he'd given up trying to use the term reality in any of this mess.

Except, oddly enough there was something grounding about watching Jack Benjamin being chased by annoyed ... annoyed. In this case it was definitely droids, and for a moment Will forgot the insanity of this in favor of laughing.

He wasn't sure who looked more ridiculous, Jack or the droids. Both, maybe go with both. ]

I expect you're going to tire before they do, Jack.

john proudstar; the gifted

[proudstars]

I » SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

[ he's slept in worse spots.

while he'd considered going back to the pods especially after ripley's recommendation, he'd taken one look at the slime still clinging to the walls of the pod and decided that he doesn't want to be closed in for a night. he has no idea what this place is, why he's here, and how he can get back to where he's needed so he's not going to let some unknown thing corner him in some cozy pod.

he eventually settles himself on a bench in the ring, back curved around one end so he has a decent view of the whole place. he's still exposed and that makes him antsy but it's the best he can do. he doesn't think he's going to sleep anyway. so, he sits, eyes flickering around in the dark, body tensing at the noises that echo throughout the area before tapering off. ]

Creepy.

[ he could admit that, sure. he'd just come out of a pod of goo and was now trying to sleep on a bench while things tapped and groaned and shifted. if someone told you this wasn't creepy, they were liars. ]

II » ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS (KEYPAD)

[ it's typical, john thinks, that he hasn't even been in this screwed up place a week and it's already going to hell. that might be a record and he's been with the underground for years now. even they sometimes went a week without things going to complete shit.

he'd be impressed if he wasn't noticing the thinning air and realizing that he'd need to control himself and his breathing to make sure the air lasts long enough for him to figure out the issue.

he's explored the place enough to know where the room that holds the enviromentals is and once he's standing in front of it, he punches it. it's worked before, all right? this time, the door doesn't give. he does it again and again, trying to use the strength he's been given to force his way through. but, the door doesn't budge.

so, plan b. he rips the front of the keypad off and stares at the mess of wires, really wishing sage was here right now to at least tell him which he had to pull to not blow himself up. he starts cutting, tossing bits and pieces aside only to look back and see that the mess of wires is even worse.

a frown etches itself on his face as he just starts grabbing and ripping wires out, perspiration beading on his brow. he barely even notices when the wires start inching their way around his wrist, when they wrap around him like a bracelet, and then trying to burrow.

keypad forgotten, john steps back and tries to rip the wires out, wincing at the quicksilver flash of pain that causes. blood beads but as far as he can tell, it's minor.

and the door is still closed. ]

Great.

[ he sounds so weary of all it. four days on and he's done with this place. ]

III » WILDCARD

[ feel free to choose your own adventure. hit me up at spoonishly for plotting. ]

I » SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

[cicatrize]

Understatement.

[ sup, over here, on the other side of the walkway leaned against a wall. the benches looked nice but a little too exposed for jack, so he's taken up a space against the far wall, tucked in against a doorframe that won't open. it's a little like trench napping - if you find that perfect angle of lounging, you can pass right out.

jack has not yet found that angle, and metal space flooring doesn't quite mold to your ass and spine the same way mud does. rude.

but talking he can do. maybe it'll help the both of them relax enough to catch some shut-eye. ]

I was never much one for thinking of things as 'haunted', or any of that supernatural crap, but... This place does make a good case for it.

zoya nazyalensky ( grishaverse ) ota

[tempestes]

( a ) - 𝔾𝕆𝕆𝔻 𝕄𝕆ℝℕ𝕀ℕ𝔾❟ 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕊ℍ𝕀ℕ𝔼

( applicable TDM PROMPTS still available )

( b ) - 𝕊𝕃𝔼𝔼ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝔸ℝℝ𝔸ℕ𝔾𝔼𝕄𝔼ℕ𝕋𝕊

( there is no way in any world that Zoya is sleeping in one of those pods. they're claustrophobic at best, but the slime is a non-starter for her. she's already irritated that anyone saw her covered in it before, she won't be caught again with slime in her hair. the mere thought makes her nearly shiver in revolt.

the Ring is only slightly more preferable to the pods, but it'll have to do for now. she's not certain of what time it is or how long she's been up since the pods, but she has refused to have any contact with that slime sense. thus she feels exhausted. her body still feels weak, an unsettling thought she dismisses as soon as she considers it rather than dwell on the truth. regardless of the time, she needs rest now.

settling next to a VIK unit seems like a decent option. the flickering light that turns on when she approaches is better than the dark, cavernous corners of the ring that give one the unsettling feeling they might be dragged into those shadows at any turn.... making a makeshift pillow of an extra jumpsuit, Zoya doesn't bother much with other comforts for sleep. this place has few to offer, anyway. instead she lays curls next to the flickering light... and dozes...

until the screaming.

she bolts up right as the screams echo through the Ring, the VIK unit flickering worse than before. in her bleary state, it takes longer than she prefers to admit to realize the screams came from the malfunctioning terminal next to her. her eyes narrow at the machine with the realization. )

Is that wholly necessary? ( she groans to herself, complaining to the terminal or herself or anyone who might be nearby. )

( c ) - 𝔼ℕ𝕍𝕀ℝ𝕆ℕ𝕄𝔼ℕ𝕋𝔸𝕃 ℂ𝕆ℕ𝕋ℝ𝕆𝕃𝕊

( the heat is unflattering on anyone, and Zoya wholly dislikes when the temperature turns up to scorching. a sheen of sweat splatters strands of her hair to her forehead and her hair has never suffered more than in this place.

she loosens the collar around her jumpsuit, making her way away from the breach where the others have already departed to take care of one disaster. guess there's another to handle inside. as she moves towards environmental controls, the temperatures sharply drop and suddenly she's bundling her jumpsuit tighter. ) Make a decision. ( she snaps at no one in particular.

eventually she reaches the door outside environmental control. she's not much use, but she'd rather try than be useless entirely. ) Is anyone inside trying to fix this?

( d ) - 𝕎𝕀𝕃𝔻ℂ𝔸ℝ𝔻

( ooc; open to any other prompts as well! pm or pp me at magickal )

with jack (cont)

[tempestes]

( thread found here )

( that's strange. it half registers in her head how strange that is that he's been through something similar to this, and that he's so accustomed to having things taken. at least he seems to have some idea of what's occurring, though, which means he has more experience than her. as prideful as Zoya can be, she understands a valuable resource when faced with it.

that and Jack doesn't seem the worst company in the world in a situation like this. she's been with worse company in a situation similar to this, after all.

she takes his hand, needing it more than she expected to stand. she tries not to let it show how much that scares her. not only are her powers missing, but her body is physically weak as well. so much for her protection. )

I've been through something like this. It wasn't as bad as this. ( close, but not quite. )

My name is Zoya. ( she adds once she feels more stable. ) I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, but no offence this isn't that pleasurable of a moment. ( a second before adding. ) Though your company is helping.

Sam Winchester | Supernatural

[familybusiness]

GOOD MORNING

[After a rather violent awakening that involved him scratching open the inside of his throat in a panic, he eventually makes his way to where they can get dressed. He does so in a daze, his long hair pushed back and out of his face, and once he's done he sits for a long moment, simply watching what's going on around him with either a distance to his gaze or a narrow, disbelieving eye.

It's clear that he's skittish, but he also doesn't look particularly hostile at least.]

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS

[The air is thinning fast, but the group of them trying to get through the door finally manages the task. If the vague shadow person hadn't been unnerving enough, the loud piercing scream it gives before vanishing is enough to shake Sam to the core, his hands flying up to cover his ears. He's not sure if the warmth he feels is simply a reaction to the noise, or if his eardrums have burst.

He's been through worse, either way.

He blinks rapidly as he tries to clear his vision, looking around to see if everyone else is okay.]

What do we think that was? A ghost?

WILD CARD

[Choose your own adventure! If you've got an idea, come at me. I'm down.]

environmental controls

[shuckit]

[ thomas has only just dropped out from the air vent, having been frozen up there while the thing screamed and vanished, and he's still rubbing against this ears, hoping nothing ruptured with that. there's no blood coming out, but it still aches like a bitch.

pacing over to meet the others that came through the door at about the same time, he picks up sam's questions, shaking his head. ]

Do ghosts normally work computers?

[ first of all, thomas is absolutely not a believer of supernatural anything, more because it labels something as beyond scientific understanding, and that just seems like crap to him. everything comes back down to basic elements, no matter how complex. but second, it doesn't really matter what they're calling it, so long as they figure out where it came from, what it can do, and how they deal with it. ]

Caroline Forbes | The Vampire Diaries

[persevere]

GOOD MORNING

[This is going to be the worst day of Caroline's life. She's been through a lot in her the span of her years, but this? This is taking everything up about a thousand notches that she wants nothing to do with.

She's pounding on the glass before the pod even properly drains, and she quickly notices how weak she feels. Human, no, weaker than human. The tube she tries to pull from her throat both gingerly and as quickly as possible, and when she finally drags herself out of the pod, she's probably on the verge of a panic attack.]

Please tell me there's at least a towel around here?

[She mutters it mostly to herself, the pitch in her tone giving away her quickly increasing anxiety, and when she tries to run at her vampiric speed only to barely manage a decent walk?]

This has to be a nightmare.

[Just wait til she sees the bright orange jumpsuits.]

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

[Caroline is absolutely, positively, NOT sleeping in that stupid pod.

She's exhausted when she finally decides to crash in the Ring, finding a somewhat acceptable park bench. It's going to be uncomfortable as all get out, but at least it somewhat resembles a bed. Sort of.

She curls up on her side, trying to get even a little bit comfortable, only for a droid to pass by not too far away. It's just an annoying mechanical noise at first, and then suddenly the area explodes into noise as the thing lets out what could only be described as a high pitched screeching.

She sits up, on alert, glancing around horrified before finally realizing the source as it stops and starts rolling away.]

Seriously!?

WILD CARD

[Come at me with anything else you'd like to do! I'm flexible.]

good morning

[accountability]

[ She won't have to wait long to see the new hideous, orange uniform.

There's a man in the aisle between the pods that's found a jumpsuit, his hair no longer wet and plastered to his head from the cryo bath they all tumbled one way or another out of. Been about an hour out of it for him. He's got a pile of sheets in his arms, substitute for towels, and when he hears her he approaches slowly, so not to startle her (and because these legs aren't working so great just yet). ]

Not exactly. [ To the question about the towels, or the comment about this being a nightmare. Both, probably. ]

Here-- [ He offers one of the relatively clean sheets, keeping his eyes politely pointed in any direction but her naked body. ] Best anyone's found so far.

Bruce Banner | MCU

[hugedork]

O2 Garden
[ Bruce has been taking stock of the vegetation. Maybe this isn't his area of expertise, but it's the best help he think he can offer here, so he's doing what he can. Well, he was taking stock of the vegetation, but he'd made the mistake of taking off his glove to get a better look at something and it bit him, so now he's siting by the door with some simple first aid supplies wrapping his right hand and trying to figure out if he's happy to be free of the Hulk or not right now.

He hears the door open, but doesn't look up. ]

I'd be careful if I were you. The lettuce bites back.

Hacker Adventures
[ The environment's given them some weird anomalies and it's taken a little while to figure out the best plan of attack. With the door locked and the keypad unresponsive, Bruce decides to pry off a the panel to get at the circuits behind it. Well, he wants to get it off, but he's not exactly equipped with Hulk-levels of strength here and he's got no tools, so when he hears footfalls behind him, he doesn't think much of talking before he turns around. ]

Want to give me a hand?

o2

[accountability]

[ It's a familiar face that comes through the door.

Steve's pulling his gloves on as he glances up, eyebrows shooting up when his gaze fixes on the person near the door. ]

Bruce- [ Halfway between a greeting and a question. It's been a while, nearly three years since the Hulk surprised them all by figuring out how to take a quinjet into space and the two of them disappeared.

He's had some time to wonder how things might've gone different in Leipzig if Bruce had been there, or Thor.

Either way, seeing the doctor here isn't the strangest thing to happen in the past forty eight hours, and he recovers quickly. ]

The plants did that. [ Just. Making sure he heard correctly, and he nods at the bandages Bruce is wrapping around his hand. ]

Cable | XMCU

[morepouches]

Sleepytime
[ Cable's not sleeping in one of those fucking tubes. Sure, he's found worse places to hunker down, but there has to be something better than sticky claustrophobia fodder, so he finds himself a quiet corner on the ring. The benches are too out in the open for him. He likes to sleep with his back against something. His time in Duplicity really didn't shake him of that.

So he settles in the crevice against the side of a bulkhead and figures he can sleep sitting up. It's nothing new for him, though the odd groaning whispers are new and he can see a shadow moving towards him. ]

Sneaking up on me is a bad fucking idea, asshole.

Blow Out
[ The emergency alert goes out and Cable is on it. Calm and forbidding, he gathers tools and starts to get himself suited up for space. It's not his favorite idea, especially not without his TK, but he's more worried about someone else doing it and getting hurt. He's really not the kind of person to stay hands-off and let another person get hurt in his place.

By the time someone else shows up, Cable is rigging a safety line with a lot of focus. This is the last time to let carelessness or faulty equipment slip by. ]

Ready?

[ He glances up. ]

sleepytimes

[cicatrize]

[ most of them choose the Ring rather than the pods, and there seems to be enough hide away spots to feel a relative decent false sense of security. jack mastered the art of trench naps while he was on the front, so that part doesn't so much bother him as all the... rest of this place. the whispers, the creaking, the—

fucking cable abruptly calling people assholes from the darkest fucking shadows there are when they're just trying to make their way back to bed after a bathroom trip, god damn. ]

Lord—

[ jack curses while nearly jumping out of his skin, thoroughly spooked. ]

I'm not sneaking up, I'm sneaking past.

jason todd ( titans )

[shove]

001

( he wakes up in a state of panic. tubes in every hole they can get through, liquid fucking everywhere and while someone with a bit more self-control would know better than to start pulling shit out--

as soon as jason gets his hands to function, he's grabbing onto the bullshit over his face, yanking it out of his mouth, removing it from where it's lodged itself deep in his throat. he coughs, sputters when the liquid from the container gets into his nose and spends a good few moments choking before the pod opens up and jason rolls himself out of it.

vomits whatever he got into his system straight onto the floor with a pained noise. it's fucking disgusting is what it is, but that's not where his mind focuses. it's on the new environment, the new--everything. the message that filtered in from god knows where. when he speaks his voice comes out horse, lips twisted unpleasantly. )

Fuck.

002 (day three)

( clothed in the prison getup and finally up on his feet, jason is still one of the more unstable on his feet. he doesn't give a shit if the space goop is made of weird crap, but he doesn't quite trust it not to be laced with something that'll cause adverse effects. even if his body was (apparently) living in it for god knows how long.

he doesn't offer to help, or go out of his way to start playing with shit. instead, jason spends his time on one of the benches of the ring, throws a ball of tied together weeds up and down to start trying to up his hand-eye coordination capabilities.

every once in a while, he misses. the ball smacks him on the face, and he curses before picking it up off the floor and throwing it once more. )

day three

[rumored]

[ dick is steadier on his feet than jason because yes, he had some of the space goop. not a lot, but— some. enough to feel steadier, enough that his body feels... not like his own, definitely not that, but at least somewhat functional.

he already misses the days he knew exactly what it could do, how far he could push it, where his limits were. this body definitely isn't as flexible or as strong as his real one. (he's trying not to think too hard on the implications of all of this.)

when he spots jason being smacked in the face, he almost laughs. it's really not funny, though, and the twitch of his lips is humourless. ] Toss it over.

[ he's already set up a bit of a training regiment for himself. running, push-ups, sit-ups, walking, squats. hand-eye coordination is lacking in the programme. ]

dorothy gale | emerald city

[tornadoed]

⬡ DAY 001 - 005 // WELCOME TO THE MEDBAY

[ dorothy isn't calm, not really. how can she be calm when she's god knows where, when she's in space, when all of this makes about as much sense as arriving in oz had? she's not calm —but she's not freaking out too much, either. the trick, she figures, is staying busy, so she's set herself tasks. familiarise herself with the small medbay and its equipment. make a network post to the effect that she's around, that she can help if anyone is hurt. gets hurt.

helping people is what she does. she can do that here, too. it's enough of a sense of purpose to help her feel steadier even when her legs aren't very steady, when her body is unused to being on its feet.

tl;dr she's installed herself in the medbay. come to her for check-ups or advise or with injuries, ask her questions, hang out... anything goes. ]

⬡ DAY 001 - 003 // MAINTENANCE

[ dorothy tries sticks around the medbay, for the most part, but it's a small space and there's only so much familiarising herself with what's there, checking equipment and sorting it that she can do.

it feels safe and claustrophobic all at once, so she ventures out now and again, exploring the ship. which brings her to the canal running through the atrium just after someone's dived down to unstick whatever was stuck there.

which— ] That's a human skull.

[ shit. ]

⬡ DAY 004 // OBLIGATORY BODY HEAT OPTION

[ there's someone messing with the climate controls, that much is obvious. dorothy's shivering in her orange jumpsuit, arms wrapped around herself.

(she thinks about magic. she thinks about blasting that door open the way she blasted the wolves away from sylvie out on that field. she thinks about tornadoes and about the bedsheet turning into a noose wrapped around glinda's neck. she thinks about doing something and finds that nothing comes. she's really, really cold.)

she tries not to be too obvious about shifting just a little closer to whoever is around, staring at the door to the climate controls, too. ]

What do we do now?

⬡ WILDCARD

[ anything goes!! ]

dick grayson | titans

[rumored]

⬡ DAY 001 // GOOD MORNING

[ it's been some ten minutes since he's woken up, since he's stumbled from a pod and looked around and muttered what the fuck? under his breath —and he's not really over that sentiment yet.

at least he's found a towel, so he's currently trying to get cryo fluid out of his hair, leaving various scars and bruises on display. when someone else enters the room, he'll look up, angling his body so his nudity is not entirely obvious, some piece of apparatus or a bed obscuring some of the view. ]

You don't look like you've got any more of an idea what's going on than I do. [ comes the grim assessment. ]

⬡ DAY 002 // 02 GARDEN

[ it's a jungle. it's a jungle and dick figures there's a good reason for plants on a spaceship. plants produce oxygen and they've all got to eat something, but this jungle is definitely out of control. ]

I know someone who'd love this.

[ "know". how well does a hero ever know a villain? —anyway, he shakes his head, pushing aside thoughts of gotham. he's been trying to get away from gotham, to leave the past and all the violence it's brought out in him behind for a long time now, but this isn't what he had in mind.

he lifts a hand, runs it through his hair. ]

I don't even know where to start.

[ anyone got an idea? ]

⬡ DAY 001 - 003 // SETTLING IN

[ during the first three days, dick can be found a. exploring the ship, b. not sleeping, and c. training.

spot him doing sit-ups and push-ups or jogging in rings through the atrium. hear him suggest sleeping in shifts and offering to take first shift (with no intention whatsoever of sleeping afterwards). see him follow a droid, walk the corridors to get some semblance of a mental map established while also training his body to walk properly, that sort of thing. ]

⬡ DAY 004 // BLOW OUT

[ the closer he - together with anyone else who's heeded ripley's call - gets to level sixteen, the colder the air seems to grow, and the more the shadows around everyone start to flicker, lights buzzing weakly overhead. dick presses his lips together. ] Well, that's not creepy at all. [ the comment is dry, not really directed at anyone in particular, but loud enough to be overheard.

in the supply room, he suggests checking the space suits they've donned over. it's a suggestion, not an order, but it's given with a casual air of authority. it's a good idea, it should be done. ] I don't know what these are supposed to look like, but better safe than sorry.

[ and then it's out into space.

(he notices that the damage is blown outward, not inward. it's the kind of detail he's been trained to notice. he files it away, but doesn't mention it.) ]

⬡ WILDCARD

[ anything goes!! ]