paradisa | 106.2 - we finally return to your regularly scheduled broadcast

[on Sunday afternoon, something that hasn't been heard in almost a month drifts out over the journals: the gravely tones of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows", followed by a certain familiar, confident loudmouth...]

April showers bring May flowers, but if this is what a shower looks like, I'd get the weed killer ready if I were you, folks. That's right, Paradisa, the broadcast is back. Okay, I know a lot of shit's been goin' down, and some of you are confused - and hey, some of you just don't care, which, in that case, your own fucking problem if it comes back and bites you in the ass. But for any of you who want the 4-1-1 on life in and beyond Castle Wonderfuck, your pal Hard Harry's gonna break down the last couple weeks for you. Sorry for the radio silence lately, but I figure getting people's houses cleaned up is a little more important than playin' some music at you and runnin' my mouth. Which is why I'm actually down in town right now, at the Art Gallery. Any of you feel like lendin' a hand, bring your tools if you got 'em and come on down - especially anyone good at patchin' giant-ass holes in roofs.

We've got a decent crop of new people this month - so here's a big ol' traditional Hard Harry welcome to Feferi, Hazel, Lucy, Gideon, August, Percy, and Adam! I'm sure you're all about ten times as confused as our garden-variety newbies, since this has pretty much been the Month From Hell. I feel a little bad for you all, so outta the goodness of my crazy, cracked-up heart, here's what I can gather's gone down so far...

On April 9th, somethin' fell out of the sky and landed a long ways away, off on the East Coast. That's what everyone on the expedition right now's checkin' out, and I'll come back to them. But not long after that, for those of you who just got here and don't know, we had one huge-ass earthquake. No casualties, but we had a lotta wounded and a lotta damage to the town, and a fire at one've the outposts. The castle itself is in decent shape, proving once again that it is, as we all know, a colossal jackass. Annnnd of course, once everyone was present and accounted for, it was time to start rallying the troops and circlin' the wagons. Someone else named Alvin was actually thoughtful enough to get people organized to help the town out, so if you still want to help with cleanup, he's probably the guy to talk to. Him, or Brock Samson, since he helped get people together, too.

And yeah, I know we only had four days to recover from that before everyone and their uncle started getting weird stains and marks and shit all over them - and yeah, emotional drama and lectures about it abounded. That ain't important, and besides, it's all said and done now, elephants included, and a whole bunch of us are gone off on this expedition. See, told you I'd come back to it.

Anyway, I've been keepin' an eye on it as much as I can, and up until everyone started talkin' about bug monsters, it seemed pretty tame. Sounds like whatever crashed on the coast was a giant ship full of the things, and they attacked a ... town full of giraffes. Yeah, I don't know either, but hey, if it makes sense to you, congratulations, you've officially been living here too fucking long. Anyway, the people on the trip started keeping a record of what they found out on this page of the journal, for anyone playing along with their copy of the home game, and there are some notes on the bug monsters on this page.

We might wanna start thinkin' about a defense or evac plan in case anything gets this far west. Gettin' caught with our pants down ain't exactly my idea of a good time, especially with the castle bein' the only really safe building we've got right now. Anybody wanna take on gettin' that together? I'm ... a little busy or I'd help. But I've got bigger priorities.

[he looks up from flipping through the journal and watches Nora as she works on repainting one of the walls. being here, seeing how bad the destruction was, has really hammered home to him how clear his priorities are. as much as he loves doing this for everyone, helping them out, keeping them informed, goading them into doing something, to speaking up, to caring ... Nora is the most important person in his life, the girl he loves, and he belongs with her before he belongs anywhere else. it's a mistake he's not going to make again, not ever. he sighs, looking back to the journal]

In other, less life-threatening and insane news, there's a kid asking for help in building somethin' called a Holodeck that sounds like it could be all kinds of fucking awesome. So we've got that to look forward to. In the meantime, for those of you hard at work or hardly workin', here's a little somethin' to perk up your Sunday afternoon from a personal favorite of those of us here at the gallery, Green Day.

[and with that, he'll jam play on his boombox and get the music pumping.]

[sometime later, after talking to Jane, he'll add a filter]

[Nancy Downs]

Holy shit, I just heard what happened. Are you okay?

[/Filter]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a whistle on this side of the journal.]

That's one doozy of a brodcast, if I do say so myself. How are things in town? Getting a little better?

There were evacuation plans. [Nope, no hello for you, Mark.]

I know, but most've the people who helped keep 'em goin' wen---

[WAIT A MINUTE, SHE REMEMBERS?!?! he didn't think she remembered, from what York had told him]

C?!

Slow an' steady wins the race, I guess, yeah. I've mostly been helpin' Nora with the Gallery, but since it's just the two of us, we can't do too much.

Still in one piece out there? What's goin' on?

[She does indeed remember! But that doesn't exactly make her more friendly.]

HH. [She briefly pauses, just enough to do that.] When did the plans fall apart.

Edited 2013-04-28 22:01 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, Mark. It's good to hear your voice again.

I'm... working on new plans. A lot of Code Blair and the people working on the evacuation plans disappeared and it's a little like herding cats in a dark room. [She chuckles wryly.

[Your girlfriend is bopping to the music while leaning on one crutch and trying not to fall over while painting higher up on the wall with a roller.

You laugh you get hit by a crutch, buddy.]

After the Doctors left, which was back in the fall. Alan still kept Code Blair up, but then a few months ago, he left ... an' Steve picked it up, but then HE left ... and now that's Phoebe's. No one picked up the master evac. I kept tryin' to find someone who could, but ...

[he sounds just as angry, even more frustrated] Either nobody cared, or nobody could get other people to care enough to help.

[he's been hit by them enough at this point to know better. those fuckers hurt]

Hey, you want me to rig you somethin' so you can reach higher up? We got enough boards lyin' around...

You, too, Phoebs. ... But I have good news. Carolina's back, and she wants to know what happened to the evac plans. I'm hopin' I can talk her into helpin' get 'em back in place again.

[as good as the news is, he sounds pretty hesitant, for some reason]

[She quietly notes the lack of mention of her own efforts toward the evacuation plans and her own disappearance as she listens.]

No one from the UNSC offered.

Oh dear! You should see about rounding up some folks to help with that, at least.

I am most definitely in one piece, don't worry about that. Everything could have gone much worse. Did you want to know what the bug men's ship hit?

Well, they were your plans, and ... I dunno, I figured they'd pick 'em up on their own? But I never heard anything.

I guess a lot of it's my own damn fault for never following up the way I wanted to.

They should have taken charge the moment they knew I was gone. [Does she sound angry? Maybe just a little bit. But the anger is a low heat, dangerous and simmering.] That's what the Alliance was about.

Well ... a couple people were really upset you were gone, so they went off in the Dead Zone to get their sulk on. [and he doesn't blame them. but he's especially not mentioning York by name, since they've already spoken and he's got the basic gist of how That Is A Mess Right Now]

Maybe they really did take charge, but they kept it to themselves. We hadn't really had any huge disasters until the earthquake, so - it didn't really come up for discussion. ... It's the same problems we were having before, getting people to actually talk to an' work with each other. I'm still shouting into the darkness, here.

[Well that doesn't sound good]

Is everything okay, Mark?

[Oh he doesn't need to mention a specific name for Carolina to guess who it was that ragequitted the Castle to sulk. It's just in his style.]

That doesn't make up for it. They all failed. The residents are lucky there were no casualties with the leadership heading this place right now.

Hey that's not a bad idea. [She smiles over at him] If you don't mind. I could always get a longer roller, too.

Workin' on that! And yeah, I do, gimme all the info you've got! Lay it on me.

I've been thinking about what to do if those things head our way.

If nothing else I can grab someone, meet them with the warthog and try to mow them down as they cross out of the Dead Zone.

Hell, maybe I can get six to bring out the Falcon and give us some air support.

We can at least slow them down. Give people time to get out of the castle.

Edited 2013-04-28 23:38 (UTC)

[Her tone lowers a little.] It hit a settlement. There were a lot of corpses just lying out in the open, and everything was destroyed. They weren't giraffes though, they were people. I didn't think they settled out this far.

A settlement?! .... Shit.

[it doesn't take him long to realize the implications of this] Did any of the older residents that went with you recognize any of the bodies? Have you seen a girl named Nancy, or found anything that might have her name on it?

I didn't ask if anyone had! And no, I don't think I saw anything relating to anyone named Nancy...though I've kept my ears open all the while, and I did hear some angry yelling around the sight. There's been plenty of talk besides. I keep hearing "First Gens".

[it's too bad Sidney Glass never delivered his news like this] Hey, thanks for the welcome. Any fan of Leonard Cohen is okay by me.

"Castle Wonderfuck" is a pretty catchy handle.

It is a sorrowful state that the castle must be considered our strongest fortress, but for now it must be so, though it seems as if we are merely abandoning one horror for another.

I am glad to hear there has been no attack so far.

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106.2 - we finally return to your regularly scheduled broadcast

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