tenuefarfalla: ** (Default)
tenuefarfalla ([personal profile] tenuefarfalla) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2019-08-04 05:14 pm

cause of death: being too darn normal

WHO: Cho Takahashi, with a closed prompt for Finnick, Peter, (and Diego?) and open prompts for other people
WHAT: cleaning the kitchen, exploring, walking her cat (not even sorry), staring at the wreck out in the desert as the sand builds up
WHEN: late July/early August
WHERE: mostly the mess hall and random walkways, the observation deck with the best view of the crashed ship, and anywhere else you want her

NOTES: I'm not an action-spam person. It's not natural for me to write, and writing long face-to-face tags with it ends up feeling like a chore. I don't mind reading it, though. (Just please don't use tiny text for your brackets.) So don't feel that you have to write prose if you're not comfortable with it. You can write brackets and I'll write prose and our styles just won't match. I don't mind if you don't.

Cho is in the kitchen following the first half of this post and before she makes the monumentally bad decision that leads to the second half of it. It's not necessary to see her post first to find her there. She's turned on a GPS beacon so that everyone can have access to the kitchen, and she's playing music.

A - kitchen - 21 July
Even after it's clear that she's probably not going to get any more interest in the kitchen (or maybe it's just too early and she should wait it out) Cho can't make herself want to leave. There are things to do here! Something to accomplish! Eventually a small cabinet turns up some unidentifiable cleaning solutions and gloves and a pile of rags. Which just renews her determination. She can start with cleaning, with the job that no one ever wants to do.

She sets her new phone up on a counter, so she'll see it if she gets a message. Then she pulls her old phone out of her pocket, and finds a suitably peppy playlist, depositing it at a very specific angle in a deep bowl to increase the sound output. Music always helps. Then, she gets to work, with her plan of action being to first rid every surface of dust, and then to scrub them to a gleaming shine.

After which, maybe, if she's very brave, she'll venture into the refrigeration unit. Or maybe not. Might need a safety suit for that one. Definitely at least a mask.

B - kitchen - after 21 July
Her experience has sobered her, but not killed her enthusiasm entirely. Yes, she almost died. Yes, it was utterly awful to experience and she never wants to do it again. But it doesn't mean she can just bury her head in the sand and ignore... everything. Not an option.

She keeps on going back to the kitchen, even after the power cut. Emergency lighting is better than nothing, and Peter helps her get a generator hooked up to keep power to the refrigeration units going, so the things that she's already gotten together don't spoil. That would just be a hell of an insult on top of a hell of an injury. If anyone wanders in hungry, she's very happy to make them something, welcoming the distraction. Some small shred of normalcy. It's not much, but she'll take it. The rest of the time, in those general vague breakfast and dinner hours, she's sitting at one of the large tables, sketch books and sheets of paper spread out around her, occasionally powering on her tablet to make a note or add something to a digital document before turning it off again to save power. There's something going on in her mind, and she hopes it turns out to be something useful.

C - random safe walkways
If Marmalade hates this place at full power, he really hates it in emergency mode. More specifically, he hates not knowing what's going on while everything is dark and scary and making odd noises. Which makes him restless, which makes Cho nervous. She had no desire to let him out when everything was more or less working and she didn't know what lurked on the agricultural level. Now that it's all breaking down and she does know, she's even less inclined.

But he's still determined. Which is how she ends up organizing limited excursions. It sounds better in her own mind if she says it that way. Even though it amounts to walking an inquisitive little cat through an abandoned creepy science fiction city with a leash and harness made from two silk robe sashes, because this is apparently her life now. Right. Leaning into it.

It doesn't get any more normal a couple of weeks after the blackout, when the cat is joined by a hedgehog with a second leash and harness apparently made out of an unraveled scarf. Bizarre is the new normal and this is just... it's whatever it is.

D
observation deck with the view of the crashed ship
It's a strange thing to be drawn to, even she can admit that. Doesn't stop her from wandering up there every few days. She's not foolish enough to venture out into the desert to look at it. Which is not to say that she's not foolish at all. Recent experience provides a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Still, it's a morbid fascination, and with no real concrete reason not to, she's leaning into it.

So she just sits, and watches, occasionally poking the fingers of her hand through the slots in the side of an animal carrier on the bench next to her, also angled to give its inhabitants a view of the wreckage. When she hears footsteps behind her, she doesn't turn around. "What do you think is out there?" It's a question she's been asking herself a lot, and never coming up with a good enough answer. Maybe someone else will have a better insight than she does.

! WILDCARD

Wandering around in general, hanging out in her room, any other location or activity that you're interested in that I haven't talked about. Feel free to either come poke me to plan something, or to just go for it here and we'll make it work on the fly.

29 July
what is day and night? - exploring the Glow with Cole - agricultural levels
itsnotaonesie: (who the fuck still uses a pay phone)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-08-06 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter's split off from the other two rescue boys and webbed himself up to the ceiling, where he is currently perched while he tries to get a better idea of what they're up against. So far he's avoided being detected by whatever these animals are, not that they'd be able to get to him on the ceiling, but hey. That still counts as a win.

"I think you're right, I think the one that was chasing you might have been like, a scout or something. There's kind of a lot of trees in the way, but I can see... three, maybe four more? Hey, did you guys ever see that really old movie, Jurassic Park?"

No, they probably haven't. Different planets and alternate universes, Peter, come on.

"Uh. Never mind. It's lizards, it's-- it's really big lizards."

This rescue was already off to a good start huh.
fishermansweater: (What do you think?)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2019-08-09 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Finnick doesn't know Jurassic Park, or even the concept of seeing a movie as it's understood in Peter's time. That comparison means nothing to him, and he's about to say something to the kid who'd volunteered to be their scout, but Peter corrects himself almost immediately and says something Finnick does know.

"Lizards."

He'd known they were going to be facing mutts. He's fought mutts before, in two different arenas, and he'd been expecting them here ever since he first heard the unsettling noises from these overgrown indoor woods. But there's nothing reassuring about the words 'really big lizards'.

"I'd like the odds better if there were fewer of them," he says, speaking softly to avoid attracting the mutts' attention. "Can you see what they're doing?"
itsnotaonesie: movieconnoisseur (*teenager noises*)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-08-12 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
Peter webs himself over to a new spot on the ceiling for a better look. The trees are still obstructing his view for the most part, but he can see a little better from his new position.

"Looks like they're just hanging around, maybe trying to figure out how to get in. We've got one up by the door all pacing around and stuff. I could probably drop in and distract them long enough for you guys to get her out of there."

He doesn't do so yet, deciding it's better to wait and see what the other guys want to do.
deadlycurves: (Knives)

[personal profile] deadlycurves 2019-08-13 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
More than almost anything else in his life, these moments are the ones Diego feels the most right and comfortable in. Dealing with threats, saving people? That's been his life since he was a kid, a choice he continued making even after he left the father that had shoved that choice on him. He hates that the one in danger is someone he knows, and that he knows is by all accounts fairly defenseless when it comes right down to it-- but at least Cho used the resources at her disposal and now has a whole damn team of people trying to get to her.

Peter and Finnick are no substitute for any of the siblings he was raised and trained with for all of his life, and he isn't in sync with them the same way he is with Allison and Luther, but-- it's fine. They'll figure it out and get Cho out and back to safety.

"Where did you get in, Cho? This door on the east side?" That seems like pertinent information to know. "Finnick, you want to get her, while Peter distracts them, and I cover you?" Seemed easy enough, on the surface, right?
bardish: 40s; SCD (scd320)

A

[personal profile] bardish 2019-08-14 12:49 am (UTC)(link)
At some point (more specifically: right after their network conversation), Jeff joins Cho in the Great Kitchen Cleanup. It's a chance to be helpful, to do something at least a little bit useful, since he's not a scientist or an astronaut or anything... And it's familiar. Circumstances aside, there's at least some sense of normalcy to be found in cleaning and organizing and meal planning.

It helps, too, that Cho seems like a sweet kid, and they get to listen to tunes! So it's really a no-brainer.

(Besides, what else is he gonna do? Keep sitting in his room, fretting and going crazy?)

"So... What'd you do?" He's still scrubbing at some particularly stubborn, persistently sticky stain, brow furrowed in concentration as he puts some major effort into it. "I mean, back home. Before getting lost in space! Were you still in school, or, like...?"

Well, she seems kind of college-aged, so that's his first guess!
bardish: 40s; SCD (scd311)

[personal profile] bardish 2019-08-14 02:07 am (UTC)(link)
He listens, and there's even a look of fondness that crosses his face when she mentions her doctorate. It's hard not to think about Lisa, in the moment. Brainy, adventurous, intensely curious, his ex-wife's way better equipped to handle a place like this than he ever could be.

Jeff makes a bit of a face, though, when Cho starts talking about Eudio. It's not a skeptical look, so much as a little... wince, that he quickly tries to hide. God, he's never gonna get used to the fact that this is something that just... happens. That for some people, this isn't their first dimension-hopping lost-in-space rodeo.

(That one of those people even knew him-- or a version of him, anyway?-- on some moon colony, once upon a time.)

"Uh." He blinks, trying to think of an answer that isn't totally dull compared to aquariums and robotics and coastal preservation and TRAVEL TO OTHER WORLDS. "I teach teenagers about history." A beat. "Like a teacher. I mean. I am a teacher, I'm not like a teacher--" He rubs the side of his neck, looking a little chagrined. "Soooo... there's that. And raising my daughter. Work and being a dad, that's my life! Ha-- uh. Sorry, this is my first time off... Earth... and it's really been fucking with my head." He's not usually this weird and spacey, he swears. "It's freaking me out, being so far away."
fishermansweater: (The enigmatic ally in the arena)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2019-08-16 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
Finnick doesn’t know many of the references they’re making, and he’s reminded for a moment of having to ask what a canary was in the arena. Monitor lizards, raptor packs, Jurassic Park, none of it means anything to someone from Four, but big, solid, and claws certainly do. Finnick eyes Diego, considering the ability of knives against something like Cho’s describing.

In the arena, he’d expect that it would be possible to fight off the mutts, but nothing about this place suggests the Gamemakers’ usual twisted logic that a good enough tribute should be able to put on a show and either die entertainingly or overcome the odds against them with the weapons they’re provided. He doesn’t know the rules here, if there are any. But splitting the mutts up sounds like the best chance they have. They’re not trying to beat the things, they’re trying to fend them off, and those are chances he likes better.

“Cho, we’ll get you. It’ll be okay.”

They don’t need her panicking while they try to save her. He’s seen how that ends too many times to think it will go well.

“Think that’s best, Diego. Just let me know if anything’s coming for me.”
itsnotaonesie: (but it's totally not my fault)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-08-16 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It sounds like Diego and Finnick have worked out a game plan, and Cho hits them back with some good good lizard facts. This isn't so bad! I mean, so far.

"Okay. Okay, I can work with that. Visibility kind of sucks, so I won't know if I've got the attention of all of them. So uh, keep your eyes peeled just in case I don't look delicious enough to them. I'm goin' in."

Time to kick off Operation: Save This Lady. Peter detaches himself from the ceiling and free falls into the trees, and upon landing promptly webs a lizard's dumb legs to the ground.

"Hey you-- uh. Lizards! Come at me! ... Yeah, that's- Wow, I'm so glad I'm not fighting people right now."

A lizard won't judge his terrible trash talking as much. This is fine. His stupid shouting, as far as he can tell, manages to attract the attention of the lizards. Step one is going pretty smoothly! He webs another one down before turning and bolting deeper into the trees, and some lizards bust ass after him. There's your opening bros, GO GET IT.
bardish: 40s; JUSTIFIED (192)

[personal profile] bardish 2019-08-17 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah. It's not the most glamorous job, but I love it." He furrows his brow and amends, "I mean... Loved it?"

Ugh, no, he shouldn't think about his life back home in the past tense. And he really shouldn't dump his fears all over Cho, who barely knows him and has her own shit to worry about. It's nice of her to offer assurance all the same. He smiles appreciatively, though it might come out as more of a grimace, considering that cocktail of guilt and embarrassment that tends to follow his rambling.

Whether or not he believes he'll be lucky enough to go home the moment he was taken, that's up in the air. But it's something, at least. Some spark of hope to hold on to.

"Good to know. Thanks." After a beat, he makes a face, scrunching his nose. "I've made things weird. Let's talk about fish and robots!" And yes, he sounds genuinely excited to change the subject to fish and robots. "There must be all kinds of shit you can do here with that background!"
Edited 2019-08-17 22:34 (UTC)
deadlycurves: (Default)

[personal profile] deadlycurves 2019-08-21 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
He notices Finnick's dubious look at his weapon of choice, particularly after the description of the things they're fighting is given, but Diego isn't phased. He trusts himself, and both his skills and abilities to do what he said he'd do.

Diego doesn't like putting a kid in that kind of position, but, well-- at the same time? He'd been doing exactly that kind of thing for years by the time he was Peter's age, and Peter was here. Volunteered. He knew the risk and accepted it, so that seemed as good as any willing acceptance.

He watches the teen descend and... start shouting at the lizards. Oh, god, he's gotta talk to him about that later. Finnick is on the move toward the entrance to get Cho and Diego is nothing but a flurry of movement and action. Of course, some of those lizards didn't chase after Peter, they caught sight of the other two and at least two of them split off to go after them.

One of Diego's knives nicks the one that seems to have set its sights on him in particular and the shriek it lets out is ear-splittingly loud. He winces and turns his attention back to the murder-y model in time to see one of the lizards heading toward him. It's barely a second's worth of thought as he realizes he's too far away to do the guy any good so instead he just shouts into the comm, "Finnick, left!"
fishermansweater: (Trident goes whizzing past)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2019-08-25 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
He doesn't need to hear it twice; when Diego shouts his warning, Finnick spins and throws on pure instinct. The trident goes through the mutt's throat, and thanks to Beetee, it's strong enough to pierce the thing's skin. He'll have to tell him about that, the first time he's used the thing to protect himself instead of for training or hunting.

Finnick lifts his rifle and fires a burst into the mutt, and when it drops, he presses the button on his wrist cuff, and the trident whizzes back to him. He looks around, gaze darting from one spot to another, checking his immediate surroundings, and he's just started running again when Cho calls out to them and begs them to stop.

"Cho."

He darts behind a tree, not intending to stop for long, looking to see if he can see the other mutts she's talking about.

"Cho, can you run? If they're tracking us, you might have a chance to get out while they're distracted."
itsnotaonesie: (...?)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-08-25 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
It's fiiiiine, Peter's got his eyes on the lizards in the trees. In fact, he's up in these trees now, and is picking them off one by one. Picking them off as in he's snatching them up with his webs and sticking them up in the trees too. They're kind of making terrifying noises because they're pretty pissed about being stuck in webs, but it's fiiine.

If Peter hadn't been actually focusing on being stealthy right now, he'd probably have chimed in with a cheesy line like 'looks like the hunter's become the hunted' or something equally as eyeroll worthy, but nah. Once he thinks he's got them all, he drops down from the trees radios in.

"Okay, forest is clear. Now's a good time to- OOOOH THIS IS ALARMING BUT I'M FINE-" That would be Peter being ambushed by an even stealthier stealth lizard. There's lizard noises and the distinct sounds of A Tussle before the lizard flies out of the trees and smashes into the nearest wall. Because Peter threw it. It made him annoyed. Just ignore the fact that there's blood in it's mouth and it's missing teeth, it's fiiine. Because it's dead.

"I'm okay!!" He's probably okay, but the good news is that he's picked off a significant chunk of those lizards, get on outta here kiddos.
deadlycurves: (Default)

[personal profile] deadlycurves 2019-08-26 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"We're getting you out, Cho." he assures her, despite her desperate attempt to get them to leave. At least he doesn't have to worry about that happening at all. Neither Peter nor Finnick seem like they're moving to do anything less than continuing regardless of what she's begging in their ears.

Diego's crouched down behind a tree, taking a moment to regroup. If there were this many of them, there are bound to be more nearby, even if they've got a good number of them tied up and dead. The problem with being designated look-out and cover-man is no one's watching you. One of the lizards has managed to stealth its way up behind him, and sinks its razor-sharp teeth into his shoulder. He lets out a cry of pain, but it only seems to fuel the flurry of movement he quickly becomes-- and elbow thrown here, a leg kicked there, and he gets out of the thing's grip; tuck, roll and he's out of it's reach and finally he sends a knife to slide across its throat, and a few more to the chest just to be sure.

"We gotta move this along a little faster, guys."
fishermansweater: (What do you think?)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2019-08-27 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
It happens quickly, but Finnick knows how to think and move quickly. When he sees that Peter has a large number of the mutts distracted -- even defeated -- Finnick runs for the building. The odds have changed, and they've proven that the things can be taken down. It's a risk; the movement could attract attention, but with Diego letting out a cry of pain, time is critical. He might have just lost his lookout.

He knows better than to assume that there being no more visible lizards means there aren't any camouflaged by the trees, but Finnick keeps going. They'll never be sure they have all of them, not in a place like this, and he knows some of the tricks Gamemakers use in the arena to lull tributes into false security. They need to get out.

He only stops when Cho's voice comes through the communication device again, pausing and pressing his back against a tree so that at least one angle's covered. He looks around again, listening for any movement in the trees, and there isn't any. Nor are there any mutts prowling around the building.

"Okay, Cho? I'm just south-east of the door, by the edge of the forest. You're clear. You run, I'll meet you partway and we'll get out of here, okay?"
itsnotaonesie: (it's fiiiiiiiiiiiiine)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-08-27 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Meanwhile, Peter's over here in the forest just stringing a bunch of webbing between the trees to trap the lizards because he's already tired of this shit and he doesn't want his dudes to get chomped on anymore. Confident that his creepy spider traps will keep at least most of the remaining lizards at bay, Peter pops out of the trees. And by pops out of the trees I mean he swings out and lands on the wall of the building just above Cho's door. Y'know just kinda sticking there, as you do.

"They can't come this way anymore, it'll take 'em a while to get around my uh, stuff I did. Go now, I'll cover you!"

In the meantime, Peter's gonna pluck a few lizard teeth out of his arm. Them's some bitey lizards.
deadlycurves: (Default)

[personal profile] deadlycurves 2019-09-02 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"Come on, Cho. We've got this-- just run." Somehow, as dire as the words might seem, he makes it sound more encouraging than scary, almost like he's talked people in situations like this before. He watches from his perch for her to dart out of the building and move as fast as she can toward Finnick. Peter can handle anything in their immediate vicinity, and all Diego has to focus on is getting out of here with the rest of them.

Once Cho is off, Diego isn't far behind, darting out of his spot and heading in the same direction. He catches up eventually and moves to fall in step beside her, assuming Finnick will flank around her other side so she's protected as they run.