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(no subject)

Who: Everyone
What: The open July log.
When: The month of July.
Where: All over.
Notes: N/A

July Open Log

Time to shine, sparkle and become renewed.

So the fighting has finished, the filtering system is turned back on and the water has retreated. Of course, all that water rushing in and having been there for so long means that there is a giant mess in most parts of the Sphere, where water alternated between coming up to one’s ankles, all the way to one’s knees. Even the smaller private domes were affected with lesser amounts of water, leaving dirt and sediment and kelp behind along with an assortment of other sea life.

Now we all remember what happened last time something grew inside the Sphere right? Thankfully, there’s been a fair amount of supplies that have been accrued, and it involves gloves, face masks and a good damn amount of bleach to go with those large scrub brushes. There’s also huge pails of soapy water that are used to clean up things from the bleach. Everything is wet and it smells a bit like an indoor swimming pool, but it’s definitely safer to be safe than sorry.

So pick up a brush and pitch in. Those who do may find a little extra something from the Council delivered to their homes in a basket. Those who don’t may find themselves a little bit on the Council’s unofficial shitlist. And given that Max runs the Black Market, it’s not a great place to find yourself. Maybe you were sort of shoved towards this and were doing it haphazardly. Maybe you give a damn. Either way, food and water will come to you, and everyone will be better once this place is cleaned up.

Or so people keep telling ya anyway.

about that bucket of water that you’re wearing.

Of course, if there’s one thing that history and eighties movies have taught us, it’s that where there’s giant buckets of soapy water around, and hoses, and big sponges, then there’s bound to be one thing that happens: a water fight. And a big one at that. Kids (or kids at heart) have been not so subtlety wandering around with buckets filled with cold water, or sponges dipped in them and a few of them have hoses. There’s no bleach in them thankfully (because it’s all fun and games until someone gets a chemical burn) but the water fight is a good way to let off some of the tension that the folks in the Sphere have been getting up too.

So are you a victim, or are you a perpetrator. Do you care either way? But it doesn’t matter because this fight is huge and when there’s this much water flying around, there really isn’t any space for anyone to be a bystander here. Sorry.

with a suitcase full of summertime

Do y’all know what we happened to miss while we were underwater?! The summer solstice. And once things are all cleaned and cleared up, your resident summertime goddess ain’t gonna let it pass without knowing it, and it’s something the inhabitants of the Sphere take to like ducks to water. Wine and dancing is flowing all around and there’s a few fiddlers and jazz musicians dancing around. Because when the queen of the underworld prods ya gently, you get up and do it.

As the night and people’s alcohol levels rise, people start to become more daring with the fire. After all, everything is all cleaned but probably still slightly damp from what had happened, so there’s no problem with people swinging poi around, or using hula hoops set alight. There are even some among us who happen to be going out and jumping over bonfires in order to create good luck for the new year to great cheers of the people around them.

and baby you should see me in a (flower) crown

Do you know what else is a thing during this? Flower crowns. There are tons of flower crowns and various people are sitting around and teaching people how to make their own. The materials, including fresh flowers of all varieties are scattered around the field in the agricultural dome, and people are sitting criss-cross applesauce in order to add ribbons to the stems. For those people who are loathe to wear them, it almost becomes a game for other people to plant them on those resilient folks heads. People use magic or guile or just plain old tossing them in order to make it so that they land on people’s heads. More than that, a group of people will audibly cheer each time one lands. (And of course jeer when they lose one.)

exploration: teeth and bones.

After what had happened, there really is no putting back the seals on the doors to the places that were opened up, even though the council has tried with some of them. There are some doors that are deemed too dangerous to let anyone go inside of (lava and ghosts are not good things to let loose inside the Sphere, no matter how fun it would be at the time) but the door in the infirmary (in the morgue) needs to be open for practical purposes. Which may not be great for people who work in the infirmary, but there it is.

Once people drop through a hatched hole in the floor of the morgue, there’s tunnels extended out for several hundred yards, into the dark. If you have a flashlight, it’s clear to see that here and there the walls are etched with Latin, carved into the stone of the tunnels themselves in what looks more than a little bit like scratches rather than anything that resembles tool marks. The words are repeated at first, over and over: ”cave veniunt!" And "ossa et dentibus illius ruminandum!" Along with the repeated: “cave.”

The skeletons inside are supposed to have been all taken care of, but you can’t help the uneasy feeling that moves down your neck in the darkness, or the way that you can swear you can hear more than a little bit of a hiss of bone. There are things discarded here on the floor of the hallway, gathering more value with the deeper that you go, but is it worth being down here in the dark with the dead for that?

let's go to the movies, let's go see the stars

So, Alex made a post, and then she went and badgered Max into giving them the money to do it, so in the middle of the merchant dome, a large screen has been set up, and there’s space for people to have blankets or chairs from home set up in front of the screen. Various vendors have set up carts or stalls here and there, selling the sort of foods that one would expect at the movies (popcorn, homemade candies, soda, juice, wine and beer, nachos and that sort of thing) along with some that one may not expect: (full curry dinners, burgers, basically a bit like a food truck festival. If you can imagine it it’s there.)

Before the movie, there’s cartoons running, some familiar, and some not, and this is an event that people have seemed to have taken to well. Children run around here taken with the idea for the movie, and it’s a fun, summery festive sort of atmosphere with a community vibe, despite the wine and beer for sale.

we're heckling! it's good to be heckling again!

Well, at least until the movie starts anyway. Groundhog Day has a fair bit wrong with it honestly, and people are taking notice of that. After all, it was from the 80s, a period that wasn’t exactly known for its political correctness or sensitivity. And there’s the small fact that Bill Murry is kind of the worst as well. So, there are some people who have taken issue with the movie that has been chosen. Those people are definitely taking the Mystery Science Theatre approach to this movie, while others are taking issue with them doing that.

So which crowd do you join? Are you watching the movie quietly? Are you joining in the hecklers? Either way, it definitely seems like a fun night out.

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Do you want it to be?

[Thor smirked, wrapping an arm around Loki's shoulders and pulling his brother in close.]

You are my family, Loki. The only family I have left. Nothing means a damn thing if you aren't there with me to share in it. I don't want to go home, not now, not with you here.

[He smiles playfully as he turns to find some form of drink before they retire to some place more private.]

I can think of worse siblings to be trapped at the bottom of the ocean with, I suppose.

[Thor shook his head, laughing with Loki.]

We only have one other sibling, Loki. And may the allfather save me if I see her again. Ever.

[Following after Loki, he can't help but feel better than he has in days.]

About that. Why are we trapped here, Loki? How do you not let it bother you so?

Hela was...something, certainly.

[He breathed a sigh, rolling his shoulder in something of a shrug.] We're told it's in error, though with how many countless being exist across the multiverse, and how many exist here who know one another, I find that hard to believe. Does it bother me? To an extent, but I also believe a chink in its armor will appear eventually.

[He smiles ruefully at his older brother, though.]

Given recent revelations, though, I suppose I have little incentive to escape. Who wants to go home only to die? This place isn't so bad, though there are far more humans than I'd like. They're all very...friendly.

[Thor nodded his head in agreement. It seemed too much to be just a coincidence. Especially now, like this. Sure, he'd been taken and maybe he might get to find a way to escape and go home. But now he didn't want to. Not when Loki was here, alive in front of him. Reaching out, he pinched Loki's bicep.]

Let's pray she does not show up here.

[Thor thought about it. Hela. The world they were in now. Home. He shook his head a little harder, staring at Loki, before letting out a loud laugh.] Oh, Brother, still so able to make new friends. Even away from Midgard, the Midgardians seem pleasant enough. Perhaps we need to build you your own, private shelter, hmm?

I'd rather not think of what would happen if she did.

[They would die keeping her at bay and the others would die because she was bored. No, there would be no thinking on that anymore.]

There are more than Midgardians here. At least one actual goddess, for one, and a demon.

[And a man who I recently turned into a dog, but I have an appointment next Tuesday to set that to rights. There's no need for you to get involved. He shook his head, though.]

I didn't set out to be their friend, but they're all so friendly. "We're all trapped here together, we may as well make the most of it!" There are a few exceptions, but that seems to be the gist of it.

Maybe they could dampen her power somehow? If they're strong enough to bring us here against our will, I have to think their power may reach a little further than our own. It's something to consider if she does ever show up? And goddess, let's hope she doesn't.

[His eyes widen and he gives Loki a look.] A goddess. Is she beautiful? Perhaps I should get to know her... As for your demon, I think I already met him.

[Thor sighed, gazing down at his ale.]

Sounds like the Avengers back home, brother. They welcomed me and they would have welcomed you if you had not tried to rule. I still maintain they would have let you come back... But it is of no relevance now.

[Thor slowly looked up at Loki.] You can be quite charming and likable when you want to be.

[The more often they spoke these days, the more they seemed to agree. It was both a reassuring and disturbing revelation. It was as though Mother had been right all along: if they put aside their differences, they made a good team.

Definitely needed more to drink to look at that.]

She is ravishing. And married to the Lord of the Dead, brother. She is also, if she's to be believed, older than Father's Father, and I would assume far more powerful than the both of us, and if not her, then certainly her husband, who might, as you may have noticed, arrive at any moment. [He smiles.] But if you'd like to meet her, I could introduce you.

[He shakes his head, but smiles.] I can, I know.

Edited 2019-07-14 05:17 (UTC)

[Thor laughed.]

I do like ravishing women, but she cannot be married to the Lord of the Dead. There is only one Goddess of Death and that is Hela. We faced her. Alas, I think you fear too much, my friend. I fear nothing, Loki. Introduce me, so that I may woo her. It's been a while since I have entranced a woman.

[He glanced up at his brother, shaking his head as well. Sometimes he felt his brother was too confident. It would be his undoing, that cockiness. It was something he tried not to think on.]

Loki... How long have you been here?

Brother, this place... [He takes a breath, shaking his head.] I know they claim it to be a facility at the bottom of an Earth ocean, but there are those gathered here from other universes, parallel to our own. They don't follow the same rules. There are similarities, from what I've gathered, but no absolutes. [He smiles, and it's a smile Thor probably hasn't seen on his face in decades: happiness at the simple joy and discovering new things.]

A month, give or take a few days.

Other... Other realms?

[Thor moved to sit down, staring up at Loki. The joy and the smile is something so rare, so foreign to him that he doesn't know how to deal with it at first. He smiles in return, but still something does not quite reach his eyes. While Loki is here, many still died from Thanos' snap. He was still a failure.]

A month. Time moves differently here, then? For it was not a month back home that you... Anyway. I am glad you have found somewhere, brother. You look happy, more so than I have seen on you in a long time.

[Was he? He...supposed he was. There was no one here trying to destroy everything, or blame him, or...anything, really. There were just things he'd never experienced, people he'd never heard of...discovery around every corner. He didn't have to worry about how many of their people had died before they'd arrived to save them, or how he'd caused it all. He could simply be and that was enough.]

It does, yes. [He nodded, frowning at the weight he could see threatening to crush his brother's shoulders. He took a seat beside him, folded his hands before him as he rested his weight forward on his knees, and then he looked over to his older brother, smiling still, gently, though, brotherly.]

You could too, you know, have found somewhere. There is a call for heroism now and again, but more often there isn't and I think you deserve that.

[Thor had not seen Loki this happy or content since they were much, much younger. Before war spoils and things got in the way. Loki when it was just them, side by side forever like he thought it would have been, like it should have been. Loki here, now, seemed happy in some way. He seemed at peace. If that meant staying here forever, Thor was not going to disrupt his brother. Not when he has this.]

Time is like the ocean. It never stays still. It's constant. Some things move through it, some move over it. Nothing stays still forever.

[Thor looked over at his brother, leaning in to gently nudge him, shoulder to shoulder. He wanted to take a portrait of Loki just like this, smiling, so that he could remember it forever. Heroics, he snorted at Loki's usage of the word.]

I am no hero, Loki. I failed. I could not save Asgard. I could not save you. I am not a hero. [Reaching over, Thor patted his brother's shoulder.] But you are here, Loki. For that, I have no reason to leave.

"Time is like an ocean"? Really, brother? Did you give up the mantle of king and decide to live the life of a bard? Poorly?

[He sways with the motion of Thor's nudge, because he rarely had any choice in that matter, and continues to smile, shaking his head.]

Heroes fail all the time, Thor. That isn't what makes them heroes. It's the trying...when the other decides it may be best to simply stay as far away from home as possible. You went to them, you stood against our mad sister knowing you didn't have the power to best her, but also knowing you had to give it a good show at least. Fleeing never entered into the equation. [And he nudged his older brother back with an elbow.] Isn't that "what heroes do"? [And he uses air quotes just to drive his point home.]

Hey. I am not a bard, but I can write and say things with some semblance of meaning. You wound me, brother.

[Thor sighed, listening to his brother, nodding his head in agreement. It was an odd day when Loki was making sense to him.]

Yes, well, then you are a hero too, Loki. You joined me. You fought by my side. I needed you and there you were. Something about a savior returning? [He smirked at his brother, swaying with the nudge.] You did not see me with Thanos, Loki. You did not... You did not see me fail so triumphantly. I dare not look Captain Rogers in the eye, I had lost so badly.

I may have tried to do something heroic, but I let everyone down. We lost people, Loki. He won.

I never claimed otherwise, brother. [He does pat Thor on the shoulder, smiling fondly.] I'm simply saying that was not your best work.

[And he listened to his brother in return, frowning, but not in judgment. No one would ever convince him Thor hadn't done something moronically heroic, successful or not. He looks down at the axe again, and continues taking in the expertly crafted blade when he responds.]

They don't sell those at the market.

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