Deer Country Network

[ The image is that of young man with longish white hair that's been pulled back in a low ponytail. Seventeen or eighteen maybe, with a bright red mark on his face that looks somewhere between a scar and a tattoo as much as it stems from a mark that's also halfway between a star or an inverted pentagram. Garishly out of place on an otherwise pale and muted complexion and gentle face. ]

With a lot of the city shut down because of the snow, if there's anyone having trouble finding food or shelter, Sanctuary in Crenshaw will be helping whoever it can. It might not be much, but it can be a meal or warm bed for the night. [ And hope everyone likes fish, because there's a lot of that that's been salted and stockpiled. But also a lot of baked things served with some of the corruption-cleansing jams from earlier in the year.

Which, anyone who already volunteers there... you can bet you were already cheerfully accosted and asked to help, soup kitchen style. ♥ It's a team effort. ✧ Either that or clearing snow; it's a big place... albeit warm itself this month, and shining like a jewel from the lunar lighting and heating within. The renovated Moon Presence monastery seems to be taking the blindingly bright bone moon and reflecting it back in a gentler manner for anyone inside. ]

There isn't a cost. Just try to help out however you can when you're able.

[ He pauses, about to leave it at that but hesitating. Expression still neutrally polite and composed, but... flickering for a moment. ]

...if anyone would like to help closer to when Christmas would normally be, it'd be nice to do something special for the orphanage as well. Maybe donate some presents for them. 

[ That's it. He'll just quietly leave it at that. ] 

This thing is finally working properly, right? Aw well, let's give this a try. [She clears her throat and smiles brightly at the Omni]

Helloooooo~ Good afternoon, Trench!

Do you know what day is coming up on Monday? No? It's gonna be Makoto Kino's birthdaaaaayyy!!! [Here Usagi holds up a pink rose covered picture frame with Makoto and Usagi inside of it.]

This cutie right here.

But yes! The amazing, the talented, the gorgeous, the fabulous, one of the best cooks in the whole wide world... Especially, THIS world and one hell of a gardener MAKOTO KINO'S birthday is coming up!

Per her request, we're noooot gonna have a party. [Is Usagi pouting? Yes. But she perks back up immediately.] BUT! She said yes to a lunch at a restaurant. So I've rented out a part of one of her favorite restaurants. I'll be taking care of the tab for everything except alcohol, that's on you to buy. [How you ask? Well, that's Usagi's secret.]

So, if you know the lovely, beautiful, talented, badass Makoto Kino, or WANT to get to know her, come on Monday around 12:30 to about 15:00 Cellar Door's beautiful Pink Rose Café!

If you need help with gift ideas, feel free to ask!

Anyone who causes trouble during her birthday will be dealing with me personally.

KAY, SEE LOTS OF YOU MONDAY! BYYYYEEEEEE!!!!!

Looking for roommates

The Apartment: I don't have a place yet and don't know exactly how you get one, so I am sorry I cannot put a catchy tagline and information about that like the advertisement guide says.

The Roommate: My name is Kageyama Shigeo, I went to Salt Middle School but I haven't found any middles schools here yet either. Sometimes I played video games with my brother, that is a hobby. People have told me I am surprisingly reliable, so I will try to be a good roommate.

You: I don't really have a preference for what a roommate is like. A good person, I guess. My dad smokes sometimes so I don't really mind that, even if it smells bad.

When: Soon.

Contact: I don't know how to put a link for that yet, I'm sorry.

[ Cue Gaia, seated in a comfortable looking room. Her living room which has gotten a enough furnishings to be called that these days. There's a cheery looking fire lit, the soft glow of electric (lunar powered) lights and a brindle furred dog curled up at the foot of her chair. Her omen, a black crowntail betta, swims flamboyantly in and out of the frame though never blocking vision of the girl. A blank page book is open in her lap and she's holding a pen. She looks enthusiastic. ]

So everyone, hello.

I've heard about Christmas and I've heard a few other festival names for this time of year. But we didn't have much like it back home, being that most of the world was swallowed by the Light.

[ But it's fine don't worry about that bit. Gaia continue to speak in an enthusiastic fashion. People that know her might wonder if she'd put a wee too much sugar in her tea. ]

A lot of traditions and so on were lost because of that and really I was never one for reading books even if there was one on the subject. So if we had Christmas or Hanukkah or some other winter season tradition, I wouldn't have a clue.

I've got the idea that people give presents to orphans from Allen's video. And decorate. But how does one decorate? What does one make or give? Though it seems highly questionable, I remember seeing mention of cookies. Do people really bake? What kind of things? If there's cookies, I would need recipes.

[ She takes a deep breath. But it doesn't seem to calm her down. If anything Gaia gets a little more enthusiastic as she continues. The writing utensil in her hand that was poised over an open journal in her lap is waved around. ]

Since I managed to prepare well enough for winter, I have a lot more spare time on my hands than I expected to have. I find myself reluctant to sit around when I can be doing something, but I don't want to look foolish either. So any information you have on these festivities or something like them you celebrate in your world would be appreciated. I'll do my best to bring those ideas to Sanctuary. And probably D's Outpost.

Respond however you like. Video, audio or text. Pictures would be helpful. But any information's fine as long as it's genuine. I'll be very cross if someone tries to pull a prank on me. So I will be checking just so you know.

[ She might be um... very energetic. But in many ways she's still Gaia at her core. ]

i: VIDEO PRIVATE to eden

[There's a saga before this that isn't broadcasted to the network at large, but only to Eden via drone: Mike's abduction on the way into Crenshaw, his bout of unconsciousness - the horror of waking, mouth stitched shut, in not quite unfamliar, bloody, hostile territory, clad only in a dull, red jumpsuit - the further horror of realizing he's chained to what amounts to nothing more than the headless upper half of what had once been a Sleeper. It's possible she's seen who and what their fate was. It's also possible she hasn't.

It's the standoff in the Sleeper Farm - floor after floor of dragging the remains of another Sleeper with him, up and up - even when his blood is functional enough he could be rid of the gory baggage he doesn't shed it - that would, in effect, be leaving a man behind, and what kind of thing is that to do? By the end of it, it's become a grudge. And by the time he's in front of that statue, all manner of organs in its hands, he gently unshackles his companion, and then himself, before stomping on the chains until they're no longer chains, but a mess of old wires that disintegrate into nothing but stains on the floor.

His endless rageful shouting - the stitches are long gone, left an aftertaste of ash that's as unwelcome as the rest of this, maybe even moreso.]

Del, to everyone!

ii: VIDEO PUBLIC: omen: username: TENSKULLS/MIKE ENSLIN

[His Omen is not instructed to contain the broadcast to the small circle Mike intends to ask, so she opens the line of communication to all of Trench instead. Mike may have meant "everyone" in the "Sword Wizards and Mike" way, but Delmira obeys in the literal sense.

Mike's blood and its monthly bonus of excitability is doing the Zealots no favors once he's up here. They're glitching as fast as they're moving, somehow they're not close enough to attack, they're never accurate enough, and then they're behind a bubble that's rendered them a slow motion haze, confused and barely audible through it, while he sits on a summoned chair, a growing pile of shirts at his feet that shows no signs of slowing. Every shirt is wrong. Wrong pattern, wrong color, wrong cut. That's a fucking video tape and:]

That is the wrong fucking thread count!! GOD DAMNIT!!!

[He is now screaming (nearly unintelligibly) I want!! MY SHIRT!! with the exact same vibe he'd once screamed as he attacked a mini fridge. If counted, it takes four hundred and ninety nine shirts to get the correct shirt back. And not that he's paying any mind at all to the Zealots besides hurling words:]

You circus freaks are either going to help me find it or you can fuck right off!!! I'm DONE!

[Wrong shirt.]

Why don't you close your eyes, imagine yourself being actually fucking scary, and then open them and weep, you ASSCLOWN!!!

[Two wrong shirts, but closer to anyone who knows the shirt.]

That was my lucky shirt! I was on my way to WORK, you fermented ball sack! My friends gave me that!! Like you know what friends are with that face! Clive Barker called, he wants his whole thing back!

I'm gonna kick you in the dick so hard your vertebrae pop out like a goddamn Pez Dispenser!!

[Not a shirt, but that's a rain of vertebrae shooting across the backdrop if one chooses to look. Mike doesn't - he's too busy yelling.

Shirts flicker out of existence as new ones appear in his hands, and when that last one comes, he goes quiet as he examines it, the flurry and whirl of bloodmad monstrosities outside his shield growing hazier still. He looks up at the statue with a cold calm, his hands clenching and then releasing the fabric, somehow angrier now that he's bunched it up. So he holds it gently now as the wall he'd conjured flickers, fades, and reveals a floor emptied of Zealots - just that statue and its organ offerings. Its blood.

Before he's able to make any further move, there's a pale, pulsing glow that replaces the fading bubble, a pearlescent shimmer as Moon Presence ends this scene just shy of sacrifice, and he's suddenly in his small, messy room at the Sanguine Station, (standing in front of a whole wall of photographs - daughter, wife, brother, various combinations - in most of which his own face is blurry) - holding a bloodied hawaiian shirt - the very same he'd donned for his first day at his new job - which he has now missed.

He looks down at his omen, the screen, blinking. Delmira blinks back, and shuts her eyes, so it's only Mike's voice that asks, after a pause:]

iii: VOICE PUBLIC: omen: username: TENSKULLS/MIKE ENSLIN

How the fuck do I get blood out of a good shirt?