[open] cat shelters

[playdolls]

WHO: Open
WHERE: Around Recolle!
WHEN: A November weekend
WHAT: A mingle log for community volunteers, building cat shelters!
WARNINGS: N/A, but let me know if that changes, I'll update.

NOTES: This is just a prompt for some SOL goodness, meeting new people, hanging out with your fellow cat lovers and volunteers, I won't be doing too much organizing, it's here for you to do whatever you want with. If you're looking for info about winter cat shelters to pad out your scenario, check here!

---

Pitou Blythe, your friendly neighborhood volunteer organizer, is the tiny one with the cat ears and tail. They're waiting in the parking lot of the shelter with boxes of supplies, boxes of coffee, and all the documentation you could ask for. Instructions on assembly, as well as maps for the proposed locations of the new winter shelters.

Shelter Locations:

• Around the local parks - easy locations within the city.


• Into the woods - medium locations, a bit more rugged but not too much travel.


• Out into the boonies - further location, outskirts of the city, county roads, farmland, etc.

Pitou and other volunteers with vehicles will drop you off at your locations, and come back for you later!

Upon return to the shelter there will be pizza and drinks.

Comments

PITOU

[playdolls]

If you want to talk to Pitou specifically, comment here! Otherwise go forth and be free.

[compendiem]

i. shelter painting; weekend morning
[ These instructions are decidedly much easier to work from than IKEA ones, but instead of properly managing his time and potentially hammering together multiple shelters in the several hours he has before work, Minato sits with just the one shelter, a paint can lid balanced on his knee with three huge dollops of paint: white, brown, and black. A coat of white paint. Let dry for an hour. And then brown and black for dead bushes and bramble, the unnecessary but convincing camouflage for a shelter that would eventually sit somewhere out in the woods.

This is a waste of time, but he looks to be enjoying himself. ]

ii. cat box delivery; weekend afternoon
[ To make up for however many cups of coffee he drank while literally sitting there and watching paint dry, Minato relents to loading up his car with the finished shelters and stopping at the outskirts of the woods to unload. He will definitely need people good with landmarks to get in and out without getting lost.

Also people to keep an eye on him because he does tend to wander when left on his own and get lost.

Maybe you're also lost. We can be lost together. ]

iii. cat; midnight, the rest of the month
[ Maybe it's a brand new day altogether and you're lost in the middle of the woods past midnight for whatever reason and you see Minato, who is miraculously not lost. He might be asleep, sat down and leaned against a tree, but he's not lost. It's a stakeout to see whether there are any cats that are making use of the shelter. I mean, it'd be a stakeout if he were awake, but he's not and he completely misses the little black cat that darts past the flap inside the box. ]

i

[maidofmistakes]

Oh... uh, hey.

[Kara gives a tiny wave, painting her own shelter.]

I guess they can't stand out, huh? It's not safe.

[compendiem]

Yeah. Supposed to keep them hidden so people and other animals don't bother them.

[ The backdrop of his shelter is mostly done, so he leaves that to dry a little before layer the mid- and foreground, shuffling over next to Kara to watch he paint. ]

What are you painting?

[maidofmistakes]

I just kind of thought it should look like a bush. I mean, cats used to get into the flower bed at my last house all the time. Although maybe a skunk would, too...

[compendiem]

What sort of flowers were you growing? Or vegetables. Skunk might've been hungry.

[ Maybe the cat? He doesn't think cats specifically seek out flowers to hang out in, maybe using the cool dirt for shade during the summer, he likes knowing about plants and whether they're potentially dangerous to cats, just to put his mind at ease. ]

[maidofmistakes]

I dunno? I think it just wanted someplace to live. Same with cats, they go under people's decks and stuff, right?

i

[prometheanflame]

[It's not a waste of time, it's a work of art. Mohammed had to work harder to reach that goal of being the #1 animal lover. His own house is a patchwork of brown and green paint for hiding into the side of a dirt road.

He leans over.] The paint is so even.

[compendiem]

[ His painting hobby and animal care have very little to do with each other aside from very rare moment like these where they both come together in the form of cat shelters. He's surprised, though, when Mohammed comes over to evaluate his work, somewhat proud that his neat painting job is being noticed. ]

It's a flat surface. Good quality paint. Cats probably don't care, as long as it airs out and stops smelling like paint.

[prometheanflame]

But it takes more than brushing on a coat to keep it smooth like that. Do you paint a lot?

[He'll wait to observe Minato's technique. His shelter has to be among the best.]

[compendiem]

[ Minato sits there and does nothing.

Mohammed with have to wait another fifteen minutes, going by the wet sheen that's still on the surface of the wood, because the only reason why Minato's sitting here doing nothing is because he can't do anything until the paint fully dries, and painting over half-dried paint would only make it lumpy. ]

Watercolors. But that's where you worry about wrinkling paper, not thick paint. This is different, but you just sort of...

[ Vague hand motions to the shelter. Paint. It'll come together like magic or something. ]

iii

[esperimental]

[ Good 13 year olds should not be out in the woods at midnight. Ritsu is evidently not one.
Look, if he wanted to have a nice chat with the forest ghosts, they seemed to be in the best of spirits (haw) at night. ]

................

[ Should he just... leave this guy alone. Better sense says: yes. It's some adult! Alone in the woods! And he's not really in the mood to threaten anyone with telekinesis he's not good at yet if they turn out to be some axe murderer.

But he could also just be some normal guy. He doesn't smell alcohol on him, maybe he just got lost. ]

Hello? Mister?

[compendiem]

[ This is not the first time somebody suspected Minato of being an axe murderer. It'd be a pretty good draw, too: sitting up against a tree in the middle of the woods where nobody can hear the scream when he jumps to his feet and swings his axe through some unfortunate passerby's neck.

Not today, though.

Minato stirs at the words, turning his head away from Ritsu at first— who is "Mister"? It's so weird hearing that when people insist on calling him "kid" even at 21— before returning to his face. ]

Hello.

[ He returns the greeting as if it were a greeting, I guess. Hi. ]

Can I help you?

[esperimental]

... I was going to ask you that, actually.

[ An awkward silence hangs over them for a moment. ]

Anyway... What are you even doing out here this late?

[compendiem]

Cats are most active at night.

[ It's an answer, even if it's roundabout: he's out here looking for cats, apparently, getting to his feet and stretching out his back before straightening halfway in that comfortable slouch of his. ]

Have you seen one around here...?

[ He'd closed his eyes for a bit to reset his night vision, but he'd fallen asleep and now his eyesight is just blurry, him trying to blink that away but mostly just looking like he can barely keep his eyes open so late at night. ]

[destiny_key]

A. If it fits, they sits

[Of course Sora is helping out. So much of his free time on the weekends is dedicated to volunteering at the animal shelter, how could he not be, really? He adores this kind of stuff.

But... no way is his mom letting him outside the city right now. So, park shelters it is. It's really a good job these things come with instructions, though.

Currently, Sora's attempting to finish his first shelter, but, uh, maybe he shouldn't have left his hammer ten feet from where he's sitting. Trying to hold everything together and reach for his tools isn't working out so well.]

Hey, uh, could you grab my hammer please?

B. Who remembers Samurai Pizza Cats?

[The party in the evening looks more like a sad office party than anything, but hey, there's free pizza. Sora will be hanging around a little bit, but he won't stay long. If you wanna talk to him, you'll have to catch him quick.]

[mercurio]

[prompto grins and picks up the hammer, tossing it up and down on his hand as he approaches sora. he holds it at the handle to look at the... something.. the boy is trying to put together.]

Sora, what?

[he can't help the burst of laughter that come with the words]

Y'sure you got this?

[he hands over the hammer, uncertain that this will actually work as sora expects it to.]

[destiny_key]

S-shut uuuuuup!

[Kinda whiney, but geeze, it's not as easy as it looks! ...Okay, so maybe it doesn't look exactly like the instructions, but it's not like he's ever done this before.

Still, Sora takes the hammer with his free hand, sticking his tongue out at Prompto for good measure.]

I'm sure!

[He brings the hammer down, and... the structure collapses down the middle. Welp.]

[mercurio]

[prompto starts laughing immediately, then clamps a hand to his mouth hoping to stop the loud chuckling.]

[holy crap]

[okay, no, he can't...! bending at the knees, he puts a hand to sora's back, trying so, so hard]

My-- pffht, condolences...

[HE TOLD YOU]

[destiny_key]

[Sore makes another whining noise, but whether that's towards the collapsed shelter or Prompto's laughing is uncertain. Either way, this isn't going well for him.]

Stoooooop! You're being mean.

[prometheanflame]

A. A house for every cat

[Mohammed arrived at the shelter an hour before the official start time. Being a bird owner means keeping a regular schedule, and he didn't bother to waste any time after giving them their food. He's dressed in an old T-shirt and pants, though he picks his newest maroon coat to wear outside.

He takes the extra time to set up the food and supplies.

The actual shelter building is taken with utmost seriousness. Mohammed is dead silent as he focuses on getting each wall to fit together perfectly, that the right colors are used, that cats will love sitting in here.

Iggy the Boston Terrier is also here, but he's currently playing outside. Anyone is free to say hi to the ugly dog if they are brave enough.]

B. Into the boonies.

[Mohammed had never been a strong man - despite his large stature - but months of dealing with Retrospec's nonsense have given him plenty of exercise, and he carries each shelter with ease.

After a few happy cat homes are taken out, he pulls out his phone, facing the suburbs, and frowns as he goes through his emails.]

A

[esperimental]

[ Ritsu wasn't really sure what he had planned to do when he visited the animal shelter. It might have been from his attachment to his friend's growing kitten, that he wondered about the state of the cats in the shelter.

Just to look? Maybe he'd be disappointing some people in that regard. He didn't really care though, so he ignored the smiles he got asking if he was looking to adopt. It may have been to understand his feelings about animals even more. To be frank, he was still neutral to most of them, only caring on an academic level. He doesn't spare more than a few seconds looking at each animal, and only stops when he sees a familiar face. ]

Ah, Mr. Mohammed. You're volunteering?

[prometheanflame]

[Mohammed wipes his hands on a damp towel for the tenth time today, a requirement he imposed on himself after every layer of paint he puts on the shelter. Having his hands covering in wet colors would be unseemly, messy, and ruin his new clothes.

He looks up.] I volunteer here every so often. Do you want a shelter? [Ritsu would have also seen the call for volunteers. It's likely he's here for the same reason.]

[esperimental]

No, not really. I was just... looking.

[ What possessed him to do that is another question. "Affection" and "loneliness" Ritsu, those are the alien words you're looking for. ]

When I heard one was under construction, I didn't expect to see you here.

[prometheanflame]

[Curiosity, then? Mohammed is fine for any reason as long as he has someone to talk to while the paint dries.]

Really? Why not? I can't stay cooped up in an office with books all the time. [He's not accusatory. If people are surprised that he works with his hands, that's good. It means the impression he gives is one of a refined scholar.]