To say it had been a slow week was an understatement. Yet in all fairness, the irradiated swamp was proving to host awfully humid weather, casting a sluggish haze over everyone including himself. The commander didn't mind the peace and quiet at all, preferring the solitude that came with everyone being busy or retreating indoors to escape the heat; however, he could tell more than a few of his peers were growing restless with the lack of activity.

    Not fond of agitated critters thanks to painful experience, Beck halted his arbitrary work as soon as the stray thought of a meeting crossed his mind. At one of the worst times, too. With the unrelenting sun sizzling on its apex in the sky, the deserted town was cooking with torrid weather in the early afternoon. If it weren't for the dehydrated plants covering the remaining sidewalks in a leafy entwined carpet, nearly everyone's bare paws would be burnt and blistered by even just a short walk. The poltergeist was numb as always to the temperature, pointedly ignoring the hiss of heated stone against his ice-cold apparition when he clambered atop the plaza's statue. For once, he had to shout to draw attention to him, a ragged and shrill croak more akin to a child's scream than the Tanglewood commander desperately announcing the current meeting. "Meetin' time! Get out here!" Coarse wheezing promptly followed, and Beck was left to struggle through the consequences of straining damaged lungs as the expected crowd approached from their previous shade.

    Despite his respiratory system collapsing, the scrawny feline dismissed his own coughing with a wave and sputtered out in haste, "Let's just, just get this over with -- give a welcome to the newbies from these last two weeks: Hati, Am and Fen's l'il kid I guess. Eight, she's the one with the tentacle hair. Cherrypaw, friendly pink fella -- I can see where ya get your name, heh. Malphas, feel free to push him into mud anytime. Oh, and a l'il lizard named Chad. Don't step on him. Also, two old members, Bugsy and Venus, have come back to us, so those who don't know 'em, say hi or somethin'." Beck addressed each one with a glance in the general direction of their scents, nose twitching in an attempt to separate them from the colored blur of his audience. Holding in a wave of useless coughs, the boy trudged onward through his list with less than a pant. "Shout-outs are goin' to the best and only sawbone we have: Nayru, Fenrisulfr for still tryin' to pull through, Hati even though she was, well, injured, the one and only Killian, and Squawk -- Ska'arq." A sharp wheeze interrupted his breathless ramble, but with a stubborn click of teeth, Beck still pressed on, bony sides heaving as he choppily moved onto promotions. "Got a lot of y'all to promote so here we go. Eight and Malphas can both move up to chasers, Freyja can be a firebrand now, Iota and Vigenere are promoted together again to proxies, and Zimavich can join in with the regents. And one last important thing; we've been needing a deputy for a while now, and after seeing all that he's done for us, I've decided to let Morgan step up as my deputy." He broke from his constant talking to search for Morgan in the crowd, the beige smudge of fluff easily recognizable to him. A shadow of a smile twitched on the side of his unscathed snout before he reverted back to his monotonous rambling in an effort to let everyone escape the heat sooner. Maybe the ice-armored samoyed would be willing to cool the crowd down, but that wasn't Beck's decision. The freckled cat let a deflating sigh slip, slouching as he mumbled the conclusion to rank changes. "Valo-kas is also gonna have to be demoted back down to a rogue since no one has seen 'em in a while -- but they can always climb back up the ranks if they wanna." Was that the first time he's had to demote someone? Huh, he felt kind of guilty, probably from all the shows he watched where main characters would fall into depressions after being fired.

Beck shrugged the feeling away, shuffling his frigid paws only to cause another sizzle of cold on hot as he continued babbling news. "Oh, I almost forgot -- I'm gonna be tryin' to keep an eye out for folks deservin' of those titles set up a while ago now, and to start, I'll be givin' the firefly title to Malphas and Eight. It's for newbies that show they've got some, what's the word, potential. And I'll also be givin' the most loyal folks of Tanglewood the gatorbait title. Get it? Because gators?" Beck giggled at his lackluster joke, the laugh rattling in his shallow chest as he covered up his missing cheek in order to keep any chemical drool from dripping. "Oh, whatever, it ain't that funny anyways," he murmured when the crowd's reaction didn't share his amusement, and continued, "The ones gettin' the gatorbait title are Vigenere, Killian, Iota, Zimavich, Morgan, Nayru, Amunet, and Fenrisulfr. The faces of Tanglewood right now." With both ranks and titles knocked out of the way, Beck could finally get to the heart of the meeting. His coughing fight settling down for a moment, he took the chance to straighten and blurt out any recent happening he could remember. "Now all that's over with, there's still somethin's to talk 'bout. First of all, I'd say the mask vigil went pretty well, right? If ya didn't get yourself a mask then, don't worry and just get one at the next full moon. Nayru also held a nurse try-out, but it doubled as a lesson, so I hope at least some of ya went over to check it out. Speakin' of lessons, I'll be holding one of my own 'bout trap safety since y'all like to wind up in legholds all the time -- lookin' at you, Malphas." Beck sent a teasing sneer towards the fellow feline's direction, who didn't know how much of a pain it was to clean up all the blood from the bear trap and repair after Malphas' struggling. "Also, since there was an attack from a couple of mutants recently, I want y'all to be careful when goin' out alone, got it? If I have to keep y'all from goin' out into the swamp again, I will. And if ya see any mutants, tell me or another high rank. In addition, be on the lookout for this week's tasks, and if ya have the time, sign up to hold 'em in the future. Last thing, the Ascendants wants us to train 'em, so we'll be havin' some type of trainin' with 'em this week -- maybe as a fake raid, who knows?" Personally, he wouldn't mind the chance to kick Bastille's teeth in under the guise of an allied event. Rising from his seat and arching his back in a well-needed stretch, Beck concluded the meeting with a slight yawn, "I'm thinkin' of havin' these meetings weekly now that we've got more folks here, but beyond that, go ahead and say anything ya wanna add -- I'm all ears."

tl;dr: welcome to the newcomers this time, hati, eight, cherrypaw, malphas, and chad, and welcome back to buggedout and venus!
shout-outs to nayru, fenrisulfr, hati, killian, and ska'arq!
promotions include: eight and malphas to chasers, freyja to firebrand, iota and vigenere to proxies, and zimavich to regent. morgan is promoted to deputy
valo-kas is demoted
eight and malphas receive the firefly title, and vigenere, killian, iota, zimavich, morgan, nayru, amunet, and fenrisulfr receive the gatorbait title
news: the first mask vigil is ongoing, as well as nurse tryouts/medicine lesson. i'll be posting a trapping lesson this week. warning to be on the lookout for mutants. awry will be holding the ooc prompts this week, and volunteers for the next weeks are needed. there will be a mock raid with the ascendants this week, too, and i'm going to try holding these meetings weekly rather than biweekly. finally the june choice awards cut-off date has been extended

//oh heck congrats y'all

Meetings didn't hold particular interest for him. Well, technically, he couldn't be interested, but that was beside the point. Regardless, the meetings were a chance for him to receive information, which he kept stored in the back of his mind. Ska'arq approached at the somewhat-familiar and wheezy call of Tanglewood's local ghost. He was among the first to arrive, taking a seat near the foot of the crusty old statue. The dragon was attentive while the Commander called out, noting the shoutout he received. Why? He failed to recall any time he'd been out and about with other Tanglers. He had only minded his own business. A shoutout meant nothing, the emotionless dragon concluded. The cold-blooded reptile lowered himself onto his belly, as if soaking up the heat the ground had to offer.

Bell slunk in to hide among the furthest parts of the crowd, curling his tail around his body and peering up at Beck as the apparition took his place on top of the statue. The sun pressed down on his dark fur, oppressive and unrelenting in its heat. This was his first meeting, but he couldn't wait for it to be over. There were too many people around him, pressing on his body and intensifying the unpleasant sensation. He had always had a cooler than average body temperature, so even the slightest rises were felt with excruciating intensity. That being said, he couldn't help but love the intimacy of other pelts brushing against his. It was almost like being petted, a taste of the affection he had been starved of as a child.

Bell licked his dry lips and listened patiently as Beck spoke. There was no mention of his name among the other newcomers, but that didn't bother him all that much. If anything, he was grateful for the lack of attention. He wouldn't know how to react if anyone had turned to welcome him. How was one supposed to react? A soft smile and an obligatory thanks, probably. The rookie shuffled his paws, turning his gaze to the ground.