People had been through a hard time recently and Sasami could see it easily. Kawalsky and Cassie, two people who tried to make themselves known on this ship, were gone. Taken by a madman who thought he could take this ship by force.

They needed something to help them cheer up somehow. Anything at this point! After a bit of thinking, an idea came to her - someone had made a hugging booth earlier and everyone ended up getting hugs from that person. If that worked before, why can't she do it now?

Quickly setting up signs across parts of the City, Sasami set up her own little booth just outside her massive tree home.

Sadly for Sasami? All those signs were in Japanese, so those who don't know it are in for a surprise as to what's going on.

A russet-furred dog was wondering around, doing what dogs do: sniffing things, bounding up to people and trying to play fetch, barking at anything that moves. Just your average, normal dog stuff. Mostly the dog hung around the city, but he also wondered around the corridors and the rest of the ship.

But actually? The dog wasn't really a dog. It was Marco, morphed into an Irish Setter. And, while Marco did find the idea of wondering around and bothering people in dog-morph highly amusing, that was not the only reason he was in this morph. No, the real reason was because as far as Iniss knew now, Jake had a dog. And it was very, very useful to be able to hang around in dog morph whenever they had to deal with Tom and the Yeerk. If Marco wanted to keep the act going? The dog couldn't just show up whenever Jake met with Tom. It'd have to look like there was a real dog that belonged to Jake hanging around. So, 'Cinnabon' needed to make some appearances.

The fact that Marco could have some fun at the same time was just a bonus.

[[ooc: if you'd like threads to happen in a particular place, just let me know where in the subject? Otherwise, I'll probably assume it's a random corridor or something.]]

If there was anyway of telling that someone was having a very bad week, it was easy to see it with Sasami. Coming off from her injuries after the battle with the Ohm, she ended up snapping and attacking Evangeline over a massive misunderstanding concerning Negi. Then, when it came to the elections, she tossed her metaphorical hat into the metaphorical ring and it completely backfired on her: meeting one of her opponents, he'd tried to convince her to step down and reading some of the messages on the omnicomms, it seemed like her opponents were trying to tell her to back off as well.

You're too young. You're biting off more than you can chew. Why don't you shadow...?

"Why aren't they giving me a chance?" Sasami muttered to herself. "Why won't they? Is it because I'm a kid? O-Or..." she shook her head as she wandered aimlessly into the Media Library. She half-heartedly waved off a working Vivio as she took a seat and curled herself into a ball.

"...m-maybe I should give up..." Sasami muttered, trying not to cry. As she did, Vivio just stared at the poor girl, both mage and Device uncertain on how to cheer her up.

(OoC: Kinda doubling up here. You can speak to either Vivio or Sasami here if need be. Oh, heck, go for both! Don't matter at all!)

In general, Satori spends most of her time either aimlessly drifting on her own, or staking out isolated places, equally alone. Or sometimes being obnoxious at people with her abilities.

By any of those traditions, her current behavior was highly out of the ordinary. Especially the friendly smile.

Satori picked out a decently-sized courtyard in the fringes of the City, and was there with a companion this time - an alien puppy.

"Sit, Okai!"

Teaching tricks to pets is usually a matter of rote repetition or tricking them. Not so, though, if you can understand what the pet is thinking. It sat, as much as a creature with tentacles for legs could sit. Satori extended her hand.

"Now, shake my hand." Okai looked at her hand blankly for a second, before her master picked up on what she was thinking. "No, there's not a treat in it.　It's about respect." Another pause. "Maybe next time." Pause. "Maybe a better way of thinking of it is that I'm the leader of your pack now." Pause. "I suppose, yes." Pause. "I miss them, too."

It was like listening to one side of a phone conversation. However, Satori and her new pet did seem to be getting along quite well, as they moved from one trick to the next, stopping between for conversation. It wasn't at all clear how well the puppy understood her, but she was at least happy.

Shore leave! A time to kick back, enjoy the sights, play around in the great weather, and maybe go swimming. Unless you're Satori.

Satori had, until coming to the ship in the first place, spent her entire life underground. After that, it had been the artificial glow of the ship. This place was, in fact, the first time she had ever come in contact with a real sun. It was too damn bright.

Nevertheless she had come down, both on principle and because hey, anything to get a change of pace from Stacy. Thus, she found herself down on a beach, parked on a towel under an oversized beach umbrella. In her hands was a glass of something that had been described to her as "iced tea," although she was beginning to question the validity of the "tea" part. Nevertheless, it was real, so she sipped it slowly, squinting into the eye-searing brightness of the sunlight shining down on the swarms of people all having a great time running around and playing in the ocean.

She was already starting to miss the caves.

Koishi liked the City. It was big, bigger than even the Underground City back home, and there were a lot of interesting buildings to explore. When she wasn't helping Sasami clean the Jurai Palace or bothering her sister, Koishi liked spending her time flying around the city, checking out the sights.

During one such trip Koishi finds a shrine. A very familiar, slightly run-down shrine.

The Hakurei Shrine. It looked a little worse for the wear, and it looked like it's been unoccupied for months, but it was definitely Reimu's shrine. Koishi had visited a few times after she ran into the shrine maiden and her witch friend.

But... what was it doing here? The Hakurei Shrine was supposed to be really important to the border between Gensokyo and the outside world, right? If it was here, then did that mean something happened to the border back home?

Too much doom and gloom on the ship? Easily fixed, if you ask this mechanic.

There is a table in the mess hall, carefully set up just inside one of the doors, with a small sign on top reading, "Free Hugs!" Next to the sign, looking as smiley as she possibly can, sits Kaylee, ready to hug anyone and everyone who walks through the door.

Non-huggers beware, even you are in danger of some cheering up today.

For the most part, between trying to spend time with the younger kids and her magic studies, Sasami has spent a lot of her time trying to clean up the massive tree-palace that was her first home. It didn't matter if she had help or not - she was enjoying it nonetheless.

It's been a month (maybe two? She can't readily tell) since she started and she had made some good progress with it. However, this latest round of cleaning had left her exhausted. Maybe if she hadn't trained beforehand... Nah, it was just tough, that's all.

Sasami flopped down on a chair to relax, letting out a sigh as she did. "Whew... and that's another one!" she said, letting Ryo-Ohki join her. "Hopefully, I can get this get this place looking much better than it was before!" She scratched the cabbit on her head. "Especially since I'm helping Hay Lin...!" The cabbit let out a meow as Sasami looked up in thought. "...I wonder if there's anything else I could do..."

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initiating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )

Stacy's voice speaks over the whole of the ship. What she has to say has become very familiar over the the podlings have spent here.

||Pod Release Protocols Initiating,|| she says. ||Please proceed to the Observation Deck to meet your new crew mates.||

Those crew members that don't head to the Obs Deck on their own are hurried there via gentle but insistent tentacles. A few people stop by Engineering to help bring and pass out omnicoms and comm rings to the new crew members as well.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]