come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, that's what I keep saying." Everyone and their fucking moms had a doomsday bunker where he came from; one of them was bound to be right. It just sucked that it was this particular nutjob.

If he's gonna talk about Peggies, they're both gonna need something to burn, so he grabs a open bag of sugar and sets it between them for easy handful-grabbing. Watch that baby flare up while he talks about cultists!

"I mean, theoretically," most anything can be turned into livestock, but boy is that not a lesson he wants to impart on anyone! So he charged right on through to, "They had this whole plan that involved converting people to their fucked up religion, then those people would live in these huge bunkers they called 'Gates.' But we thought they were just crazy, so the cops rolled through and shut the bunkers down. When the Collapse came, most of the Peggies died, 'cos their bunkers were fucked, same as ours. The ones that didn't eat it through the nuclear winter set up a hippy commune in the woods, actin' all self-righteous and burning 'Old World' shit because ~that's what got us in the mess in the first place~ or whatever."

Sure, but humans have far too long a gestation period and require far more resource input than you're going to get out of one singular baby for eating purposes. And the turn around time for a baby growing up to be an adult capable of reproducing makes this whole livestock thing a bad plan. Better stick with chickens, she thinks.

Ava tosses a few handfuls of sugar into the fire.

"I don't know, burning shit is a bit cathartic," Ava comments, "but probably a silly thing to do when your world is running on limited resources. You're really ruining my dream of being a doomsday prepper, you know."

It's called veal, Ava.

"That's how I feel about it. Like, go ahead and burn the old Grisham novels and shit, nobody needs that. And if you don't wanna listen to fuckin' classic rock now, that's cool, but don't bring my ass into it." Ugh, "Religious extremists are always like that, though. They always like, gotta get up into your business. Before Joseph, I was constantly gettin' these fuckin LDS motherfuckers comin' round my place, tryin' to, y'know, convert me to their weird polyamorous cult thing, but they were real dicks about drinking and smoking so I told 'em to fuck off."

They probably got murdered by the Peggies, but hey. He's not going to give a shit about missionaries. "Sorry, uhh, it turns out that being a doomsday prepper is kinda fuckin' boring and also depressing. But at least you're not the only one -- pretty much every try-hard survivalist back home got the same rude wake-up call when they had to live years in their shitty home-made bunkers."

"Communes out in the woods should be leaving everyone else alone. I lived in the woods for five years, never caused any problems." She caused plenty of problems. "Religion is weird. You know that the captain is trying to become a god? Maybe this ship is his polyamorous cult."

Ava sighs out her disappointment. "I think it's more fun thinking about society crumbling, more than anything. Never been much a fan. But what comes after doesn't seem all that great either."

"Hahaha, fuck, man, good luck to him," because that sounds fucking awful. That kind of like, responsibility and like, effort???? Fuuuck that. Being a regular person is plenty hard enough as it is.

"I bet you just gotta go, like, a couple hundred years into the future, and then it's better. Or maybe it's worse. I dunno, most of the games I played were more focused on the hordes of mutants to fight than, like, the socio-political ramifications of mass nuclear warfare."

He'd like to think people are better, somehow, but... "Y'know, people kinda suck, sooo chances are good we'll fuck it up all over again. But what else are you supposed to do? Give up? Fuck that."

Yeah, Ava would like to not be a person at all at times. And sometimes that's all she wants. Annoying. She sure as hell wouldn't want to be a god.

"Hey, maybe those mutants are just wanting a decent future for themselves too," she jokes. "But this is probably as good of a place as it gets, for me. Not that many people. No laws. No broken economic system to suffer. Nobody treats me any lesser for what I am. Endless crab legs. But people do suck, and I'm sure the first opportunity to ruin this all, a few selfish assholes will. Make that decision for the rest of us and destroy the only good we have."

"If that happens, we just gotta do what we did in Montana." He grins, chucking more sugar into the fire before pumping his fist. "Round up the gang and beat the shit outta anyone who tries to take our home."

Not that he, like, thinks of the ship as home or anything. But he isn't going home, soooo, transitive property, this is home now. Right? Right.

She laughs, wondering if and when it'll eventually come to that.

Because yes, it's her home. It's where her friends are. And she doesn't want to allow a few angry passengers to destroy everything just because they don't like the guy in charge.

"If the Captain dies, the magical barriers will fall. And all of everything here will cease to be."

"Then I guess that dude doesn't have to worry about me kicking his ass, huh?" Because, like, it would suck to be the guy who literally killed all of these people. That would be literally the worst thing ever. He would probably fucking kill himself if that happened, except he'd also be dead, which would also suck.

"There are always assholes out there tryin' to ruin good things for other people, but so far most everyone I've talked to either just wants to go home or like, doesn't care that they're here to begin with. That's good, right? Means mosta us all want somethin' similar."

"Mostly, but all it takes is a couple of egotistical hero types that like to punch before they think of the consequences. Luckily the Captain doesn't seem so easily taken down, so..." Ava shrugs.

"At least with somebody like you around, things are less boring," she nudges him lightly.

Sharky, unfortunately, knows all about that Leroy Jenkins bullshit. He sometimes wonders if that's exactly what Rook wound up doing. Just rushing in, guns blazing, without thinking it through...

"That's my job, I guess. Makin' things less boring. Or lightin' shit on fire. That is also definitely my thing."

Because fire never disappoints. It just outperforms your expectations!

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject