revivalproject | [Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

Entry tags:

[Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

WHO: ALL HE ROWS PRESENT
WHERE: Calibrations Area
WHAT: Mingle log for literally anything you'd like to take place in the waiting room between sleep cycles during the event
WHEN: June 10th to July 10th
WARNINGS: Please mark individual threads with warnings
NOTES: If you have any questions, please go Here

An Agrii, or what may have been an Agrii, led you here, and now you can't get out. From the moment one steps through the door into Calibrations there is no going back. Luck, good or bad, even prevents people from being in the entrance way when another He Row arrives, meaning there's no slipping out to be hoped for. This is because Calibrations at their core keep you from going out and seeing the world, keep you from doing much but exploring the space and interacting with your fellow trapped He Rows. This wouldn't be much of a problem if there was a lot to do in the lengthy hours between the compulsion to sleep. At least there is some modicum of comfort offered to those who were tricked into this timed trap.

Some might find the area familiar, having haunted these halls before. Upon entry one walks down a large hallway before it opens into an even larger waiting room with chairs, tables, and the same food dispensers available in the ships, save that it lacks any Red Fruit Drink. It's a shame, actually, the alcohol might help you get through things, and since there was no warning this time, the dispensers are likely the only source of food available. There is more than enough to feed everyone, even to the point of being overstuffed at every meal. At least there are those small favors.

There are also communal bathrooms - one men and one for women though nothing would stop a person from using whichever they desire - with several toilet stalls and shower stalls in each, including basic shampoo and soap dispensers. All of the dispensers put out a liquid that smells like motor oil for some reason. The water in the showers is pleasantly warm and just perfect for getting clean. Well, it is for good little boys and girls who don't blow up buildings. Given that sort of comfortable temperature hasn't been available in past sessions, it's a real relief.

Branching off of the main waiting room are hallways that lead to a number of bedrooms. The door of each bares a nameplate on it, imprinted with the name of a He Row. Those who are returning here won't find their name plate in the same place it was previously, which might be frustrating in its own right. The doors aren't locked though, and anyone can enter any other room or share with anyone else if they wish to. Each room has a single, simply made queen-sized bed, and a set of drawers. The drawers have a white jumpsuit in the size of the He Row whose name was on the door, as well as a pair of equally white canvas shoes. It's kind of your captors to offer you clothes, and for a change there will be new ones available to you this time through, replacements appearing once every week. You can wear them or ignore them as you like.

Greater pity has been offered this time than before for the He Rows, offering a variety of things to do in the downtime. Given most of what He Rows may have been able to grab and bring with them for their 'escape' may not be much good for entertainment, it's helpful to have even the little things. Shelves are available in the large waiting room, filled with boxes and containers. There are pictures on each box, brightly colored and then defaced with Agrii smilie art, showing all sorts of aliens having fun with games.

Sadly the games are not written in a language anyone knows. Luckily the Communications datapoint is working right this time, and it's possible to translate the instructions for a change, letting people play things with all the fun you need. Unfortunately this year there are pieces missing. Because of course nothing can ever be easy. The only thing that is fully intact is that solid gray puzzle and of course, Monopoly Longest Game Ever. There's even paper and pencils and crayons! It's like the Calibrations area was upgraded just for you!

In fact, you don't have to rely on just the board games to keep you occupied this year. In addition to them, the food, getting to know each other, and probably building forts out of all the beds, there's one big plus offered to everyone: arts and crafts! That paper and those crayons aren't the only thing. There's containers of water based paint, there are brushes and canvases, there's even clay for modeling and glue for pasting paper together if you decide to cut some up. No scissors or knives though. But maybe you can spend some time beautifying your mostly white surroundings. Or maybe committing some graffiti in your frustration. Anything to pass the time.

You can opt to spend time in your room or in the larger, common waiting room. But about every twenty-two hours, all people suddenly feel a compulsion to sleep. Once this starts, you can’t fight it off. You find yourself going into your room for bed or wherever else you feel like you’d prefer to sleep. And then, inevitably, you close your eyes and dream.

Threaded | Flat

Home. It had been a compelling idea. Enough of one that Tae, who had been doing the ill-advised thing of working late and thus who had fallen asleep at her desk, moved without thinking.

Who knew how 'getting home' would work so she grabbed his emergency kit, threw on her clothes from home, and raced after the... Well, creature? Agrii? She didn't know what to call it. And now here she was, fuming.

"Seriously, if they didn't want us to save their world they could have just said so," she said. "The whole jailed thing doesn't make sense."

Which she supposed covered just about everything here. Nothing made sense.

Of course there's now so much time to fill. During the days most of her time is spent in the waiting room, her medical kit near at hand, some of the paper and pencils in hand as she sketches to pass the time. Often there is a bowl of protein paste near at hand, and she looks far from excited to try some.

By the third day she's found at a new crafting project. Those white jumpsuits? Well, she's clearly collected the one from her bedroom and she's got some medical scissors, a needle, and some thread out. You better believe she's going to find a way to make this thing look better.

"What I'd give for some dyes to make this a better color."

White was not her vibe, except for the whole doctor's coat.

And, of course, there's always the other thing that she gets up to. Doctors, they've got to do rounds. Sure it's not for physical health, but mental health is probably something worth considering. Which of course is far from her specialty. But she does move through the halls knocking on doors to look in on people.

Link does not cope particularly well with the enforced confinement. Although it's perhaps not the most obvious, at first. He turns out to be oddly good at just sitting still and...waiting. Almost as if he's on guard.

And yet, Link's patience for this is not limitless. These quiet, still periods of time are interspersed with sudden and sometimes explosive moments of activity.

At first, he runs through sword forms in the waiting room. The Sword that Seals the Darkness glides swiftly through the air, one methodical movement to another.

Then he starts to run around in circles, trying to see how quickly he can make a circuit of the entire space. For anyone nearby, they'll get a quick "Time me" from Link, before he's off and running.

A few weeks in, he starts collecting furniture. Dragging as many as he can from wherever he can - which includes other people's rooms - and stacking it on top of each other. At first in haphazard shapes, but over time they get more and more elaborate. Then he will climb the structure. Survey all around him. And then jump off, before dismantling it and rebuilding something else.

Then, in the last week or so when Link is really starting to go stir crazy - he takes some of the crayons and starts drawing on the walls. Said drawings are, essentially, an attempt to re-create from memory the contents of the Compendium of monsters, creatures, flora and fauna from home. When he runs out of things he can remember there, he starts local flora and fauna. The drawings start off contained to his own room, but soon end up spilling out when he runs out of space.

1. First Day - Shock

He really should have known better.

Of course no amount of should haves will change the fact that Dustin fell for the illusion hook, line, and sinker. He's not terribly surprised that he did - he's learned in the almost year since arrival that the Agrii's mind-controlling abilities are nothing to sniff at - but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when it happens. Especially when it involves complicating factors, like the fact that Dustin has a lot of fancy new tech to take home, and how one specific piece of tech can only be easily transported by use of his abilities.

Which is why he's now on his side, on the floor just past the doorway, his exoskeleton suit frozen in an awkward, mid-stride position, struggling furiously to try and wriggle his way out of the clamps holding him in place under a constant stream of hissed curses. He could probably use a hand, as much as he doesn't want to admit it.

2. Second Day - Denial

Okay, Dustin considers, staring at the monolithic main door from a cross-legged, hunched position about twenty feet away, chin resting on the palm of his hand for so long that it's starting to make his wrist hurt. His mattress sits propped against the wall next to the door. No abilities, can't remember shit about how anything works. Not important - physics is still a thing, you know enough of the basics. Leverage. Just have to jam enough shit in the way to keep it from closing. Simple. Idiot-proof.

The only problem with this plan: Dustin has been trying to enact his 'idiot-proof plan' for the last twenty hours, and has not once successfully managed to prop anything into the momentarily open door, or even get close enough to try. Something always distracts him for just long enough to miss his window of opportunity. At the moment exhaustion is starting to get the better of him, eyelids fluttering as his mind wanders.

It's the sound of the door closing that jerks Dustin back into wakefulness. "--Oh--fucking, come on!" he wails, voice cracking as he stumbles blearily to his feet, glaring at the person that just entered like this was somehow their fault. "You've gotta be shitting me!"

3. Third Day Onwards - Depression

Dustin might not have the capacity to remember every dream he's been in, or the experiences of everyone that's taken a tour through his own dreamscape, but he's aware of just enough to make him intensely uncomfortable about the whole thing anyway. For someone that's spent most of their time on Agra-10 hiding as much personal information from everyone else as possible, realizing that it's being served up to anyone curious enough to look, without his consent, is one of the most violating experiences he can imagine. The fact that they've been provided more than basic amenities - warm showers, kids' crafts, like they're all supposed to just sit back and have fun during all of this - is even more of a slap in the face. He does not want to engage, does not want to let them trick him into thinking this is normal, and most importantly, does not want to let the rest of the captives that have been traipsing about in his brain confront him about what they've seen.

His appearances in the main area are brief and deliberate. A quick run out to the bathrooms or to grab food, but only after he's listened at the door to his room to hear if there's been any recent activity nearby, slipping out when it sounds the quietest. He hasn't used the showers, doesn't trust the clothes provided enough to change into them. The bags under his eyes grow heavy as he tries to avoid the inevitable dream-filled sleep. Someone had predicted that Dustin wouldn't have enjoyed the Calibrations process very much, and though he doesn't remember who that was at the moment, they had definitely been right.

A trap. He should have suspected a trap, and yet here he is, and he's not sure yet whether he should feel a little justified in knowing that he hadn't been the only one.

It's even more frustrating that he has no idea what was going on with the exit other than that it just was not there anymore, and not only that, but something was actively jamming his tech to look further into it.

Trapped in some place that didn't play fair with a bunch of other people and no internet connection, let alone his phone?! This is already grounds for torture!!

If anyone's noticed the turtle teen amongst their initial number, they might also notice as the days go by, just how scarce he is around the holding area. Investigation would find him in his room, the door usually at least slightly ajar, not that having it closed would do any good given it can't be locked. There one will find him working on, of all things, some armor-like equipment.

When they'd been called to get ready to leave, Donnie had been practical. Not knowing how long any space journeys would take and loathe to leave any of his work behind, he'd brought all that he could. This consisted of his battle shell and some tools, the batteries and crystals he'd been experimenting with, along with his beloved tech-bō. Being able to still work on anything is likely the only thing that's going to keep him sane the longer they're stuck here.

Still, a turtle's got to eat, even an occasionally manic, mutant one. One might not even notice when he slips into the main room to help himself to a bowl of some of the flavored or even the unflavored protein, which he'd usually opt to take to his room unless he's feeling particularly lonely, in which case he'll sit in an unobtrusive corner to just listen to whoever else is around, just for some kind of ambiance. At the beginning of things he might be spotted rifling about the craft supplies for paper and something to write with. He has no computer to make his notes so he'll have to go old-school, even if he has to do so with a purple crayon!

It's too bad there's no tubs to soak in, but at least the water in the bathroom is warm, so don't be too shocked to find him sitting there at some point, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and without his mask as he tries to get the most out of the shower.

Edited 2023-06-13 06:02 (UTC)

OTA: Steve Harrington looks like he's had zero sleep despite the obvious facts precluding that possibility. He spends his time in the waiting room trying do decode some of the weird games that are sitting in the room. He doesn't have the Communications datapoint so he's flying blind. but really is that so bad? The only game that he has fully set up is Monopoly and he's claimed the little dog for himself as he makes it run around the board.

Other than that, he sometimes just loiters around the dispensers looking grim. He's hungry but the options are such shit that he might just opt to starve. How long could this whole shit last, anyway? He could ask someone but lately he's been getting answers to a lot of shit he'd prefer he'd never known so maybe he should just keep to himself...

EDDIE ONLY:

After everything they saw from each other, Steve has been a man on a mission. When not unconscious, he's been in the craft area, hunched over something he's been fiddling with in private. He stole clay, crayons, paper, everything. Even the paints. It's been a guarded secret whatever he was working on for about a day or so. But finally, he is pretty much done. Whatever he's been so focused on is in a little paper box with a card on top. The card is folded paper with a drawing on top of what might be Steve with a grumpy face. His stick-arms are on his stick hips and there's a talk balloon coming out of his head going 'BLAH BLAH BLAH, I'M A JERK'.

Steve is proud as punch as he holds the card and gift against his chest and goes walking around to find his friend. He has a plan, you see. And this is step number one.

This waiting area setup is a joke. A bad one. One that Wesker willingly walked into and now finds himself stuck in along all these unfortunate beings that dare to invade his dreams only to suffer the consequences. He has killed some of those that appeared in his dream. Rightfully so.

When outside a dream, Wesker shows no interest in engaging with anyone, but he neither makes any effort to avoid them. The white jumpsuit left for him remains untouched and he still wears his deep black suit as he moves about, crossing the common areas as if he owns them whenever he grabs food, water or moves to take a shower after going through his workout routines that can take several hours and greatly consist of going through various martial arts moves and yoga. If he has to waste his time away here, he may at least make sure to maintain his form as best as he can.

The one concerning thing for him at this point is that the amount of serum he has prepared and brought with him isn't likely to last. And while the virus in him is currently being suppressed, the moment they will be released it will be very unstable and take it out on his body. Which is not something he is looking forward to. But it's nothing anyone needs to know about either.

18 and Life by Skid Row

Home. Home was dangerous, Billy knew exactly what waited for him to go back. But if he could finish what he started, going up against that creature in the mall, then so be it. It saved Max and he'd never have to deal with his dad again.

So to be tricked and caught like a rat in a cage, he's rightfully upset.

Already sporting a nasty bruise from his encounter with Eddie and Steve the other day, Billy finds the room marked as his and heads in. Doesn't even bother to close the door all the way before slamming his hands against the wall while shouting. Flashbacks of the sauna hit him, like clips of a movie he's watching and he slams against the wall instead, leaning against it.

Max's walkman sits on the bed, waiting to be turned on and listened to through the headphones plugged in.

"What the fuck," he murmurs to no one in particular. "What the absolute fuck is going on." His cheek hurts from Steve's punch to it, and now his hands and forearms do as well from the force of slamming them against the wall.

Take On Me by a-ha

He's going to go stir crazy in here. Billy hates it in here. He can be found pacing through the halls, listening to the walkman to try and deafen his own thoughts and others in the main room, and he can be found sometimes in his room.

Billy's removed one of the drawers from the set provided, and filled it with various weighted objects. His boots, the extra jumpsuits, generally anything heavy he can find to put into it. And he uses it like a weight set, bench-pressing it while laying flat on the floor. It gives him something to do while Kate Bush sings about running up hills and making deals with God.

It's enough to get his mind off of the dreams, the other people, and his bruised up cheek. Billy works at the drawer-weight in sets of seven, counting out loud.

Cold as Ice by Foreigner

Billy sits with paper and crayons. He's not much for art, though he can appreciate the art of music at least. The mechanical art of cars. But between sleeping, basic needs, and weight lifting with his drawer, there's not much else to do. So he sits and draws.

But he draws a little frantic, filling the paper with rats; with black veins creeping over the paper; of a giant creature with six legs dwarfing the paper. The pages get scattered around him as he works, the walkman from his step-sister protected in his lap as he does so. He hums something under his breath, trying to focus on what he's doing, instead of how it's not filling as much time as he'd like.

God, he feels like a fucking prisoner.

00110001: The Door

All he wants is to go home. York is tired of the drama of humans around him (IE: the trip to the hospital did not go anything like it should've in his opinion), and he just wants to be around his own kind again. He hasn't even seen Markus about, and wonders if maybe he was already back home, or maybe was better at hiding out here in town than the smaller android.

So finding out that he's been lured down into this damn bunker again, takes all of the wind out of his sails. He finds the wall out of the way from the door and slumps against it, LED glowing gold through his shirt. He doesn't have much with him - his hoodie and a couple thirium packets.

"We're really here again? There's no telling how long it'll be either I bet. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, I hate this."

And to make matters worse, he was still deaf on his right side because that still wasn't fixed.

00110010: Weird Spots

The thing about being an android, is when he went to sleep, York didn't need to be in a comfortable position. And he didn't need to be in a comfortable spot. And sometimes when he woke up, he didn't move from it. He wasn't stiff, or malfunctioning (yet). It was like his software was emulating a human being numb to whatever was happening to them.

He wasn't angry. He wasn't even upset. York couldn't find himself to care. The Agrii were toying with them again, making them experience Calibrations over and over again each year it seems. What did they do to deserve it? Was it because he pulled that damn chair out from underneath Tony? York had apologized for it, but maybe this was just the punishment for it.

Beats being reconfigured and losing his deviancy, his personality.

He can be found in seemingly random spots, like under the sink in the bathing area, or under a table. Maybe even tucked into a corner somewhere.

_{[ooc: If you talk from his right side, he won't hear you as well because of hardware failure.]}

Edited 2023-06-19 00:43 (UTC)

i. arrival

Boba knows something is wrong the instant he feels cold air against his skin.

The Agrii had said they were going home. Tatooine might not be Boba's home, but it's where he was last in his own galaxy. It should be where he finds himself now as he steps through the door, his father's helmet in-hand. Instead, he's greeted by frigid air, sterile white walls—and the Agrii's message scrawled on the surface, punctuated with that crude three-eyed face smiling mockingly back at him.

Within seconds, he's pounding at the door. His voice is an indignant shout, leveled at the now-vanished Agrii who had been right behind him only moments before.

"You said we were going home!"

Of course, there's no response. Still, Boba keeps up the pounding at the door and shouting for several moments more, if only to cover for the growing dread he feels in his chest. He'd been tricked. They aren't taking him home. So: what are they going to do to him instead?

His instincts say nothing good. The message 'Welcome to Calibrations' hardly offers any clues, either. The word calls to mind things done to machinery or weapons—not prisoners.

Several minutes pass before Boba finally ventures deeper into the space, though not before placing his father's helmet over his head. The hallway opens up onto a large space, dotted with furniture, doors—and people.

Boba steps forward, addressing whoever is closest to him. "What's going on?" he demands. "Why did they bring us here?"

ii. escapeless

It doesn't take Boba long to learn the routine of this place. They sleep and dream of being trapped in each other's memories, each other's minds, like prisoners shoved into each other's cells. Boba starts to recognize people in the waiting room during his waking hours, people whose memories he's seen or who have seen his.

It's not any sense of secrecy that unnerves Boba; there's nothing in particular he's concealing from people here and nothing in particular he's looking for, either. Rather, it's that he doesn't know why this is happening nor what exactly about him is being calibrated by these mental intrusions. It leaves him feeling trapped, helpless—and angry.

For the most part, this just means that Boba cuts himself off from others even more than usual, locking himself in his room for days at a time and acting brusque with anyone he happens to encounter on those rare occasions he ventures out. But about two weeks into his captivity, things seem to reach a boiling point. He simply walks into the main area one day, grabs an aluminum chair, drags it into the entry foyer—and starts swinging it at the door.

The racket it makes is incredible, echoing through the empty room and down the hallway beyond and resounding with every strike. Honestly, given that he's not very big, he manages an impressive number of blows, though that likely won't be much appreciated by anyone else putting up with the noise.

For better or for worse, he can't keep it up forever. Anger and adrenaline start to give way to exhaustion, and the blows begin to slow. Of course, he hasn't managed to come close to opening or even damaging the door, but that's not the point.

He wants whoever is on the other side to know that whatever it is they're doing to him, it isn't working. He's still himself. And he still hates them.

iii. coping

Boba's time between sleep phases isn't all despair and fury. Sometimes, he's just bored.

At first, he refuses to touch any of the entertainment options provided by the Agrii. They're all insultingly childish anyway, and he doesn't want to give any Agrii watching him the satisfaction of feeling they've done him a favor.

Still, as the weeks wear on, that sense of spite begins to crumble in the face of overwhelming boredom. He still won't touch the crayons or the board games—he's not some little kid—but he does eventually grab a pencil and start doodling on white paper.

The drawings are, for the most part, fairly random in subject. There are Mythosaur skulls, Sabacc cards, surprisingly detailed starships—and, as anyone who's been in his "room" during the sleep phase might recognize, the image of an eye in the palm of a hand.

That's not the only thing that people might recognize, though; objects from people's rooms or even their memories might also make it into his doodles. He doesn't mean to expose anyone—honestly, he may not even realize where those images are coming from at all—but there it is all the same, some token of your previous life scribbled into some kid's drawing between starships and skulls.

{ A little later on... | Causing a ruckus }

Ash has tried to keep in good spirits and tried to stay positive but the truth is he's dying to go outside and just... run. He hasn't been able to in weeks now and he's never been good at sitting still. It was bad enough he's forced to stay on an alien planet with no Pokémon and no Pokémon battles but now he has to stay in the same building?

Any Pokémon trainer would be restless at this point but that's not really any reason to lose his cool. He's tried to keep himself entertained with games and other things but he can't read the weird alien language and monopoly has never been a game he was ever any good at.

Not to mention he's wasted so much time that could have been spent training and keeping Pikachu in top form for their next battle-whenever that is. He makes up his mind and moves to a slight more open area in the main room hold his arms out to the side.

"Pikachu, I want you to use quick attack on me." He tells his partner.

"Pi?" Pikachu blinks in confusion. The last time they tried this, Felwinter interrupted. He glances around to see if anyone might object. When he doesn't see anyone he dashes towards Ash at full speed only for Ash to move out of the way last second.

"Too slow buddy, you're gonna have to do better than that." Ash teases with a grin.

"Pika!" Pikachu objects and chases after Ash, the two being very careful to try and avoid running into the others.

{ Closer to the end | All tuckered out }

Ash and Pikachu have discovered they can still play tag and chase each other around. They have to be careful not run into anyone but there's enough space for them to dart around the perimeter of the main room and up and down the halls.

However, right now they're both exhausted, having spent up much of their energy so the two are laying down on the ground just staring up at the ceiling and just resting. At the sound of approaching foot steps though, they both sit up long enough to determine if someone is coming to talk to them or they can just lay back down.

[Keith was... annoyed. He'd never really been a fan of Calibrations, ever. And, had he figured out a way to avoid it, he would have. But, for now, he was stuck. And he was grumpy about it.

He'd spend time in the common room at times, mostly for meals or if he got bored enough to wander. He did spend a lot of time in his room, though. He also paced... or did small workouts in his room. Keith didn't take well to being cooped up. He tried the whole, 'sit tight and wait it out' option, but after the first few days, he couldn't sit still long enough to even remotely resemble being calm.]

{OOC: Catch Keith either pacing the hall, fidgeting with a board game, eating a meal, or being annoyed in the common room, or moping/exercising in his room!}

Threaded | Flat

Tae Takemi | OTA

Link | OTA

Dustin | OTA

Donnie von Ryan | OTA

Steve Harrington | OTA / Eddie Munson