etrayalogs | MAY MINGLE

MAY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 17th-31st
WHERE: On Etraya
WHAT: A mingle log!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A, please note any needed warnings in threads.

⏵ a hero's return ⏴

As champions exit the Labyrinth, they’ll find that their environment has gone through some fairly drastic changes. Where there used to be larger bodies of water is now thinner rivers going through land; the amount of bridges connecting landmasses has decreased, given what had been individual islands are now much more connected. In addition, Etraya is significantly more green; flowers bloom, birds chirp cheerfully, and there are numerous additional species of insects, mammals, and aquatic creatures throughout the lands. Baby foxes roam through forested areas, bees pollinate the flowers to spread them more thoroughly around the inhabited areas, and it feels brighter. Or perhaps that’s just in comparison to how the Labyrinth had been.

There are more areas to explore, new facilities, animals, and Etraya feels significantly more settled than it had before. Aurora’s promise of renovations had been true. And if one looks up, they may notice a city bubble visible on the closest planet that hadn't been visible before.

⏵ coffee break ⏴
After hearing Clarke’s suggestion, Aurora sets up a new cafe close to the apartment complex, and sends out notices to individuals with mandatory coffee hour times listed for them to come to Corrine's Cafe and make a few friends.

While the note does state that it is mandatory, there will be no follow-up from Aurora nor the companion bots to ensure those who receive notes do show. Given this is Aurora trying to take suggestions in mind and see how successful they are among the citizens of Etraya, however, following directives may not be a terrible idea.

It's up like a modern-day, smaller cafe. One walks in through the front door, and is greeted by a companion bot behind the counter who offers a wave of their hand and a friendly “Welcome! Let me know when you’re ready to order”. The menu offers lattes, mochas, espresso, black coffee, several different kinds of teas, and a few drinks that are a little odd to find in a cafe; ale, canned sodas and coffees, numerous bottles of wine, but only pinot noir.

Soft music plays in the background, impossible to place but it sounds as if it may be based on tracks that were popular in the early 90s.

Tables and booths are set up to seat two to four, with packets of sugar and small containers of creamer set out towards the middle. There are charging stations set up at every table, which may seem strange considering phones and laptops aren’t widely available, but Aurora’s doing her best. There are also a few bookshelves full of the classics, a few historical fiction, and several written by H.P. Lovecraft.

Each seat has a placard in front of it, with a name, and a ‘fun fact’. One might say “Hello! My name is Joe, and I like to paint!” Another may say “Hi, I’m Jill! My sister died tragically in front of me and I’ve never gotten over it.”

⏵ new horizons ⏴

Several of the new bridges found in Etraya now have signs posted just outside of them, and on those signs is a QR code that the earpiece’s HUD can scan. Scanning this with the HUD will bring up a scavenger hunt, listing several items and circling areas where they can be found.

Some of these objects will be obvious: find Corrine at Corrine’s Cafe - the companion bot who runs the counter, find a delicious meal at Bangsan Market, break into S.T.A.R Labs, or find room 87 at Point Blanc Academy. Some will be less obvious, like locating a bat, becoming friends with an archer, find a pink shirt, open bagged milk without making a mess, or get a drink at the mutant-friendly pub. Please feel free to make up your own items to find around Etraya!

⏵ NOTES ⏴
Welcome to our mid-month mingle!

Please feel free to use this to explore Etraya, put up wildcard prompts (you don't need to use the above!), or use the open prompts to assist in jumpstarting cr.

This mingle covers the period from May 17th to May 31st. Our next mission (and next mod log) will not go up until June 7th.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Peter relaxes enough to scoff, sinking a little in his chair. Only this time instead of shame, it's in exasperation.]

I've seen better customer service from debt collectors.

At least they're not abducting you from your home... usually.

[Ah, the teenage snark tango. It's a common practice for anyone over fourteen but under twenty. Peter, for his part, will never grow out of it. With a sigh, he recollects his cup of joe, but mostly just turns it absently in his hands.]

It's just — there's better ways to get us to mingle, or whatever. I'm pretty sure just the fact that we're all alone together on some alien planet is plenty enough. But they make it sound like this could make some kind of difference, and... I don't know.

[ Krouse is never sure exactly how his attempts at banter will go over. There have been a disappointing amount of humourlessly prickly individuals, so it's nice to meet someone who happens to know a joke isn't some kind of poisonous eel dumped in their laps. ]

Pretty sure that's primarily the province of loan sharks.

[ Who are certainly a kind of debt collector. ]

As for this set up - I've been entertaining the theory it's one of those testing our compliance things. Same basic concept as pep rally attendance. Are you a good sport with school spirit, or a troubled delinquent fighting the system on principle?

[ He lifts his hand from his coffee mug and gestures self-deprecatingly at himself. ]

I'm angling for a perfect attendance certificate. I've never gotten one before, but hey. No time like the present.

Krouse. Intolerable, like it says on the tin. I think your name card ended up a casualty of the fly over there, so you are...?

Oooh, yeah. Loan sharks are totally the worst to deal with.

[And they usually have lackeys that try to shoot him with guns when he busts their bubbles and their covers. But nobody has to know that little detail about his life, huh? At least, not yet. Not while he's still trying to decide how much of himself to reveal, to a group of mostly strangers. Still kind of anxious about the whole... Beck betrayal.]

I'm Peter. And it's nice to meet you.

You don't seem all that intolerable yet, but maybe that's just because I've met loads of intolerable people. [Even before Spidey, he had plenty of bullies to contend with. The woes of being a scrawny, cringe nerd.] I think... it's probably wishful thinking, but if all of our trials were just having coffee and danishes? I would be even just a little more on-board with the idea of compliance.

[He has a sneaking suspicion that they're gonna be put through a very unfair wringer, though.

His spidey sense hasn't tingled, but it sure the hell will eventually.

Multiple times in his Etraya tenure, even.]

[ Krouse tries to weigh if Peter is joking about loan sharks in a general or specific sense. It's not out of the question that he's speaking from experience - not exactly like Krouse can pick up many reliable socioeconomic clues in a place where everything is free and they all have to 'shop' at the same weirdly expansive department store.

He supposes it doesn't really matter, except to the degree it inclines him to a little readier sympathy for the new guy. That, and being told he doesn't seem intolerable yet. He relaxes a little where he sits, propping his right elbow on the table to hold himself up. ]

Thanks. And I also kind of wish you hadn't said that, because it makes being the bearer of bad news that much more awkward.

[ His smile tilts apologetic, his tone still playful. There's just a ripple of wry resignation underneath it, because this is starting to turn into a standard spiel. ]

Mission one was hunting down our evil clones. Mission two was the death labyrinth. I'm not sure how mission three is shaping up, but at this rate, I'm putting my money on something involving pools of acid. Optional acid-proof piranhas.

But! [ He raises a finger off his coffee mug in sync with raising his eyebrows. ] We've also had plenty of mandatory puzzle challenges, so it's even worse than it sounds.

[His brow furrows and expression drifts into more and more concern as Krouse explains the missions that had happened before him. That sounds... more like torture than anything. The idea of having to kill yourself, for lack of a better word... and then get trapped in a death labyrinth? It's putting Echo more firmly in villain territory. (Lucky for Echo, Peter will probably still try to save her and Aurora in the process, if he had the choice.)]

So, what. We're proving ourselves by how far we're pushed?

What we're willing to do?

[ Krouse's smile fades further as Peter grows more serious, until it's barely more than a lingering impression. ]

That seems to be it, more or less.

[ Even he knows that pushing the joke here isn't going to help. He can give Peter a breather to take it in. It's more of a courtesy than Krouse has usually had, which means he knows how far it can go when someone looks like they need one. ]

But we haven't had to do most of it alone. I don't know if that makes much of a difference.

... It does.

[He taps his fingers on the sides of his coffee cup, apparently lost in memories that Krouse's reply had seemed to dig up. Good memories, in a way, even if a lot of them are in terrible circumstances.]

There's so much more we can do, when we're not alone. Even if this place tries to make us fight or pull away from each other... There are good people here, who just want to do the right thing. Who can learn how to do the right thing, too. And we can all work on it, and face what Etraya throws at us. Together.

So... yeah. It does make a difference. I know it will.

Edited 2024-06-09 01:56 (UTC)

[ If Peter had given Krouse this little refresher on the power of friendship when Krouse first arrived, he'd have had to invest a lot more energy into not rolling his eyes. As it stands, it only takes a small nudge against the instinct.

He's the one who brought it up. That's also something he wouldn't have done a few months ago, or at least not without an icy edge of restrained sarcasm. ]

Yeah. [ He looks down into his coffee, studying it for any hidden secrets that might bob up. ] The exponential power of teamwork.

So, for some actual good news, I can tell you that you're going to fit in here just fine. The local superheroes are all about the cooperative spirit. [ He lifts his mug to sip from it, no secrets yet forthcoming, eyes still shaded down. As an afterthought, he tags on: ] You've got superheroes where you come from, right? So far it's been either superheroes or wizards ninety percent of the time, and I'm not getting a ren faire read off of you.

[He grins.]

A ren faire would be kind of fun.

[Peak nerd material. He'd probably not be very good at it, but MJ and Ned would have totally killed it at a ren faire. And for once? Thinking about them, knowing what he knows — it doesn't hurt this time. Small favors.]

We've got superheroes and wizards, yeah. I've survived through two attempts to take over earth or destroy half of all humanity now, so... kind of good to have people like that on our side. [He shrugs, looking down at his cup.] To be honest, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the things that happened back home.

... Only to wake up here. With my planet in danger for a third time.

Cool.

[ Even though Krouse tossed in the ren faire bit as a joke, there's a part of him that still kind of thinks they're not the lamest sounding things in the world. Some people might get embarrassingly into them, but there was a time he would have gone to one at least ironically. He's always thought there was a certain something to a good cloak.

But that's second or third conversation material. You don't get into The Silmarillion territory until you're sure you've got the other side scoped out for it.

All of which is several hundred miles to the left of the much more relevant topic of pending apocalypses. ]

Tell me about it. [ He flicks his eyes back up to Peter, rueful smile creeping back into place. ] I'm used to things at this scale getting handled by the nice people in spandex. At a distance. This is all a little up close and personal for my tastes.

[ He settles back in his chair, face briefly screwing up as he considers the question he's about to ask, and shrugs his way into it: ] Are you talking wizard-wizards, or capes cosplaying as wizards?

[He snorts at that, smiling at the thought.]

He would be totally put out by the idea that he's a wizard cosplayer. I gotta be honest — Dr. Strange is the real deal, mostly... That's his real last name, by the way. No hidden identities in there. He's also actually a doctor.

... He's not a Lord of the Rings wizard, though. If that ruins him for you.

[ Krouse stares at Peter for a few seconds. It's not a look of disbelief, but the long, wondering goggling of someone who's just been handed a piece of amazing trivia. ]

So you're telling me that where you come from, there's a guy who's a wizard and a doctor, and he goes by Dr. Strange on purpose? Does he fit the wizardry into the medical practise? Assuming he's a medical doctor, and not a guy with a Ph.D in newtology. But seriously - you're not fucking with me?

[ The fact he's not Gandalf is not ruining this for Krouse, no. ]

[Peter breaks out into a grin at that. Yeah, no, somewhere out there Dr. Strange is absolutely feeling some kind of phantom aura. He probably knows he's being talked about. Peter wouldn't even be surprised if a golden circle of light appeared next to them, like a shark fin in the water. (Or maybe he'd just feel better if that happened.)]

I'm being completely for real! Dead serious, cross my heart.

To be honest, I don't know him super well. Like, I think he was a doctor first... but I can't rule out that he was a wizard first, and then decided hey! Might as well go rack up some student debt and become a doctor. I feel like that's something crazy I'd do if I were some magical wizard guy.

[Dr. Spider-Man? That'd be kinda cool.]

Not a chance.

[ Krouse shakes his head, caught up in the hypothetical. ]

Mastering the arcane arts and then deciding to spend - what, eight, ten years becoming a doctor? I'd be out there securing my wizard's tower and cultivating my minions. Accumulating tomes. Maybe some light owlbear manufacturing on the side.

But it's just as mind boggling to go the other direction. Hell of a midlife crisis, I guess.

[ And then becoming a superhero on top of all of that. It's a shame all the obvious jokes are too obvious, because it really is strange behaviour. ]

Congratulations. Your universe has one uniquely weird guy.

[Scoff!]

Dude, you've got no idea. The wizard doctor is definitely not on a short list of unique people.

We've got a guy who gets big and green when he's angry, too.

[Poor Dr. Banner. But on the other side of the coin, people his age grew up loving the Hulk, like, a ton. There were a lot of kids painted green for Halloween. Peter, well. He wore his fair share of Iron Man masks, when he was eight or nine.]

[ The skeptical arch of Krouse's eyebrows suggests he finds 'gets big and green when mad' a few rungs lower on the ladder of 'improbable oddness' than 'wizard doctor'. ]

We've got a guy made of metal. He sticks to anything metal he touches, too. Has to walk around with rebar sticking out of his face until he absorbs it.

[ This wasn't a competition until this exact moment, but Krouse is overwhelmed with the sudden impulsive urge common to a certain type of teenage boy everywhere: the urge to escalate into a debate that almost always ends on discussing if Goku, if he were real, could beat up Scion. ]

Oh yeah? We have Thor. Like, the actual Norse mythology guy. Only he's actually just an alien from outer space that everyone thought was a god. Loki's his brother, too; he tried to help a bunch of aliens take over the planet way back when.

[good god it's an obnoxious teen boy battle]

[ If only Krouse had yet learned about his universe's own, personal space aliens. The upside is that this means Peter scores a point that Krouse doesn't currently have a counter for, marked by the raise of his eyebrows and genuine surprise as he processes all of that. ]

Not the first pantheon the conspiracy theorists predicted, but okay.

[ Very Stargate. ]

We've have a supervillain who was going to shoot the moon out of orbit. Was building this giant gun for it when she got caught.

- sorry, I'm circling back. Two different kinds of aliens?

... Whoa. A moon? That's definitely a reason to put 'super' in front of villain...

[Actually, he's had a moon thrown at him. Or rather, at a group of them.

But he's not Spider-Man, he's Peter Parker.

So he nods, offering a sheepish confirmation.]

Lots of kinds of aliens. My planet actually got half of all life wiped out on it by some purple jerk-off who thought it was the cure for universal hunger or something. [He shrugs.] We just — poof. Crumbled to dust for five years. But the Avengers and the people who worked along with 'em, they got us all back.

Sounds like you're not unfamiliar with stuff like that, though.

The supervillain thing and all.

Edited 2024-07-01 05:42 (UTC)

[ Krouse is fairly jaded about the scope of disasters, or so he likes to think. It's a good quality to have with the looming apocalypses of so many different worlds hanging over all of them, an everpresent threat that squats like a bilious elephant in the midst of everything else.

But he's taken aback by half, in a different way than he was by aliens. He sits back in his chair, fiddling with the handle of his coffee mug as he gives Peter the look of someone who knows they should be saying something considerate, but not what that something in. ]

We've lost a few countries, but not...Jesus. And that happened to you? You were just - gone for five years, and then you were back?

[ Another resurrection, but the scale - he's spun his coffee mug most of the way around, he notices, and reverses its course. ]

The Avengers did that? I've heard some other people mention them before.

[Peter affirms with a nod, though he doesn't look too devastated on his own behalf. The truth of the matter is, he's not even remotely sure how to process that part of his life; the sensation of dying, of being the sickest he'd ever felt before collapsing into dust, of knowing they'd failed and people he cared about were likely dying at the same time — and then, to resurrect into an all-out battlefield... Yeaaah. It's a lot, and he can't even make sense of his own thoughts and feelings about it.]

Yeah. I was born in 2001, but I was still 16 when I came back in 2023.

We had to get special notes on our IDs, and a bunch of our high school friends had already been going to college for a while... Life just kind of went on without half of the world. It wasn't great, I guess, but... I don't know. I couldn't even imagine how to keep going knowing half the people you care about were dead.

[It's really... awful.]

[ Their situations aren't identical, but Krouse has a strange, almost completely unfamiliar sense of recognition as Peter describes the alienation of being removed from his life and tossed into a world both like and unlike his own. A world where you don't quite fit, and you have to live with knowing that everyone who cared about you has mourned and buried you already. ]

I'm sorry. [ He means it, quiet and earnest. ] I have no idea what you'd be supposed to do with that.

I mean, yeah, you came back, but...five years. [ He shakes his head. ] All the things you missed, and everyone who missed you. Where would you even start?

[ Something occurs to him, late enough that it'd almost be embarrassing if it wasn't so serious. He sieves an exhale through his teeth. ]

Here's hoping they put people back when they brought them from, I guess. Not something you want to go through twice.

[ If they put people back at all, but this is grim enough as it is. ]

[He shakes his head, smiling a little.]

It's alright. At the end of the day, people are tougher than they look. Even with everything that's happened, everyone's moving forward and doing their best with what they've got. We're all patching up, catching up. Billions of people on Earth who by all laws of nature shouldn't be able to do that, they can now.

That's kind of amazing, isn't it?

[ It's funny how Peter saying that is evidence that it's true. It is kind of amazing that he can believe that as he demonstrates it, holding onto that optimism in spite of everything he's described. Krouse matches his smile. ]

Yeah. I guess it is.

[ Maybe a better world is possible, as long as it's somewhere else. He doesn't mind the idea as much when he has someone to attach it to. ]

You know, maybe you should see if you can tell that story to Aurora? Like an extra credit assignment. If I was handing out the points, I'd say that goes towards proving your universe's deservingness. Just a thought.

MAY MINGLE

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just puttin some bows on threads to make way for more ✨👀