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It's that time again!

Those that were here last year or have done Flower Queen nominations know the drill---- it's time to nominate contestants for this year's Green King!

In June, the Cucumber Festival (aka CukeFest) will be held, celebrating a beloved and abuntant summer crop and a joyous time of year. In addition to fairgrounds activities and beach fun, there will also be a masculine equivalent of Merrymeet's Flower Queen role, which is the Green King!

Nominees for Green King can be anyone who identifies with a masculine gender identity, and should be someone who exemplifies joy and fun, a community figure who brings happiness and laughter to others, or anyone that you believe deserves to be exemplified or lifted up. Court members will then be presented to the town in a parade, where the winner is given a crown and a massive green cape. Tradition has it that the Green King will then be given alcohol by all other members of the court with the intention of getting him "pickled", but for those who don't drink, there is the alternative of pickle juice, earning the role the affectionate alternate title of Pickle King.

Because we're anticipating a big turnout like Flower Queen, we're going to brace ourselves for a 2-round voting system. In order to be nominated, a character other than themself must leave a comment below stating who they wish to nominate, and then the nominee in question must reply to it accepting (or declining, if necessary).

Nominations will tentatively close on May 1st (I always forget, but whatever day I plan to close them, I'll ping the server at least 12 hours in advance) and ALL NOMINATIONS MUST BE POSTED AND ACCEPTED by closing! Round one of voting will begin the next day! Happy voting!

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

Who: Fever (abhorrently) & open.
What: Trying to live life post Eligos's fall.
When: Latter half of April and beyond.
Where: Across Marrow Isle
Warning(s): Will be noted in thread headers.

( so just take me as i am )

Who: Simon (hemonaut) & YOU

What: Simon's still getting his bearings, and that involves, among other things, finding a job.

When: After the fall of Eligos

Where: Around town, and then on his farm

Warning(s): The prompt titled "It really ain't that far" includes Iron Lung spoilers and canon-typical blood and body horror flashbacks. Similar flashbacks may occur in threads, but for the content of the threads themselves there's nothing spicy happening.

You gotta dig a little deeper

It's been a rough adjustment period for Simon, even before he was kidnapped and all of that shit happened. But now that the excitement is over, he's back in the town and still adrift. Taking odd jobs and delivery gigs, and still sleeping rough out in the woods at night, he moves around the town like a specter. Maybe it's your package he's delivering, holding it out with his good hand.

"Package for you."

Or maybe he's just looking for an odd job, and you're there looking busy.

"Hey. You need help with anything?"

...Or, if you're an Enforcer, he's just kind of looking sketchy and bothering people for work.

It really ain't that far

As he often does, Simon stands in front of the community bulletin board. However, today he's not really looking at the jobs on the board, lost in thought as he carefully worries a small, cracked glass pendant in his hand. This is not something he's had before, especially notable since he's been kind of looking more like a vagabond than a laggard, wearing all his clothing in layers like someone will take it away from him if he doesn't know exactly where it is.

The recruitment posters smile down at him, peeking out from behind the community notices and ads, friendly reminders of the jobs that need doing. Laborers laying down cobblestone streets, fishermen hauling nets full of silver bodies onto the deck of a ship, a farmer, with a wagon full of verdant armfuls of fresh vegetables.

"When the last son of Eden joins the grove, there will be a thousand trees!"

Blood, thick and sticky, pouring into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, soaking through his clothes and burning like acid on his skin. His face burns like it's tearing open, like every scream is splitting his mouth open wider, sharp teeth like claws splitting his cheek. And then a rupture, a release, a thousand ropy roots flooding through his veins and bursting out of his body, defiant and beautiful and alive, reaching for the surface with a thousand clawing branches, as desperate to live as Simon.

And, for Simon: darkness. Surrender. Death. A warm blanket in an office with a white-haired woman, and a body that now felt too small to hold him.

It wasn't what he had imagined, and he doubted it was what Father had imagined too, but... Well, he couldn't deny that there were thousands of trees.

"...How come I'm the only one here to see it?"

Sometime later, Simon is coming out of town hall with a key and a deed in his hand, looking at both like some kind of arcane objects that he's never seen before.

You'll find out what you need [CLOSED to Aloy]

The thing about signing up for a new job is that it isn't move-in ready. About a week, town hall said, to get him set up with the resources he needs to succeed. Which leaves him a week to tell his camping buddy that he's moving out.

"...Would you be...mad at me, if I told you I got a job?" he asks, pushing around his dinner with a spoon. His bowl is balanced on his knees and braced on one side with his stump. He's not sure why he said it that way, why her opinion matters to him so much. But she's been kind to him, opened up her camp to him and then let him come back, after...all that that happened. Having another person beside him has made it so much easier to adjust, and knowing that there's just one person has made it less overwhelming than trying to stay at the inn in town.

Blue skies and sunshine, guaranteed

A few days after Simon heads out to his farm, he's in town at the Community board, with a notice of his own:

WANTED
manual help getting a farm started. cleaning up weeds, maybe chopping down a few trees. someone who knows what they're doing preferred.

YOU GET
free ride back and forth
2 meals
free firewood if you want
75 brass

And then he sits on the back of his cart and waits for takers.

At the farm, he wasn't lying about it needing some work. He's cleaned out the well by himself, and cleared out weeds, vines, and small trees around the perimeter of an area about 60 feet by 20 feet. The house itself looks drafty but stable, but his priority is getting plants in the ground. A single brown chicken bobs around the overgrown land, burbling to herself and pecking at bugs she finds. A green, leafy grass-type Pokemon helps by trying to pull out plants bigger than she is.

But he's ready to get to work, getting down in the weeds and using the claw to hack at the roots to make the weeds easier to pull.