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meadowlarklogs2019-01-06 09:54 pm
- !arrival log,
- darker than black: hei,
- dc comics: dick grayson,
- dc comics: jason todd,
- detroit become human: markus,
- ffxiv: x'rhun tia,
- ffxv: noctis lucis caelum,
- marvel comics: thor,
- npc: gaby,
- re6: jake muller,
- starfighter: cain,
- the 100: clarke griffin,
- the silver case: sumio kodai,
- voltron: keith,
- westworld: maeve millay
ARRIVAL LOG 006
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of September 3 to night of September 4
WHAT: The sixth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.
Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs.
You realize there are others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips.
The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, and false, colored light, illuminating the streets in the distance will first alert your senses of being somewhere else, combined with warm air that's only cooled with the setting of the sun. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded.
The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind. Once all the passengers are out, they climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then the bus is gone.
You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here.
Around the corner of the alley, the streets are lined with bright orange, yellow, and red ball-shaped lights cluttered together overhead. Despite seeming rather tangible in nature, the balls themselves are merely well-designed projections. These lights illuminate the streets filled with people – some of which seem indifferent to the festivities, while others move in dense clusters toward a city square filled with countless trucks and tables. They disperse as they arrive – to trucks, to stations to have faces painted, to admire the wide array of sweet confections available. Numerous bits of signage announce various additional activities – but anyone new won't be able to interact, won't know what information is there.
◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request.
The message from El – no, wait. It's Gaby this time. Otherwise, it's the same as previous: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it.
I'm on announcement duty this time. Bus #6, for anyone who's counting. The location? Well, the heart of the lantern festival. A short walk from the safehouse.
Like many of these festivities, the New Amsterdam Lantern Festival is an annual event, dating back decades as a means of celebrating the mish-mash of culture that influences New Amsterdam as it's seen today. Sponsored by Polarized – a known subsidiary of Pulsar – the lights go bright just as the sun begins to set late in the evening, spreading over the city, acting as a dense layer of luminescence for 24 hours. Even in the daytime hours, the lights remain, and the technology seems to make them seem just as bright – which acts as a sign that the lights themselves are not natural, projected outward by numerous devices set up throughout the city.
Most of the events are concentrated in a district square that was once known as the city's Chinatown. At the heart of this festival is a large gathering where numerous food trucks and restaurants come out to advertise their wares. Specializing in desserts and little else, these businesses flood the street every year in hopes of bolstering their business because they can't partake in the restaurant promotion throughout September. The festival concludes with a competition, with each chef revealing their unique lantern festival dessert. These are often rather impressive in nature: cake pops strung together like a dragon, ice creams that make people's mouths look like they're glowing, and large cakes, shaped and designed to celebrate New Amsterdam's arts and festival scene. Many of this year's offerings will both celebrate the year before and offer a somber reminder of the lives lost in the monster attack just months ago. Smaller, sample sizes of these desserts will be available for purchase, which also grants people access to one vote for their favorite dessert.
As the lantern festival comes to a close almost a full day later, the lights clear a path to the river, where countless people will be stretched out and looking skyward for this year's fireworks. Loud, symphonic music featuring some of New Amsterdam's most popular composers will play throughout the area, synced up with the bombastic explosions themselves.
Most of the six newcomers will have hopefully been gathered long before the fireworks go off – but anyone else is free to enjoy them and the festivities leading up to that final conclusion. The festivities vary in nature, from a place for someone to claim a lantern of their own with a wish, to using UV paint to legally cover the ground in unique symbols and lights, to joining competitions where people place chess and checkers for a wider audience. Each of these activities is monetized, so don't expect anything to be for free.
There will be several new and persistent additions along the most likely path to the festival from the safehouse: small, man-made shrines that have appeared just hours before the dense layer of lights settled over the city. Depending upon their makeup, these shrines vary in structure, size, and design, but have several unique, persistent similarities between them.
Some of the shrines are fully formed, with candles lying underneath them, and cloth blankets acting as an overhang for the art within. At the heart of each of these shrines is an image of a person, with a large, upside down triangle projecting from their chest – blue and noticeable – with their arms spread wide. Some of these triangles project from the chest as if a piece of a 3D pop-up structure, while others are simply a part of the image itself, a flat, smooth surface. Beneath them, there will be a scene from a familiar event for anyone who's been here for a while: a car flying into a monster's mouth, a person healing someone else, bright blue eyes and fingertips, showing the artist's personal interpretation in motion. Any of the cloth is covered in geometric symbols, intersecting circles and triangles, many of them in specific and particular patterns.
Other shrines are two dimensional in nature – painted, to be more specific, on the walls themselves – both hidden bits of scenery meant to blend in with the surroundings, or large and spread out, splashing wide arrays of colors and symbols. Whoever set up many of these artistic displays had a special paint and familiarity with the lantern festival lighting, as it draws special attention to the blue light that pours out of the people featured, whether it comes from their eyes, mouths, or the traditional chests. Silver and gold geometric symbols stretch around these images, framing the scene portrayed.
These additions aren't only located near the safehouse, but that's where they're concentrated for now. Within days, they'll be elsewhere: on walls in oft-frequented public restrooms, behind popular nightclubs and bars, and just about anywhere else – popping up and coming down as people tire of their presence – or are simply bothered that they're there at all.
Access to the safehouse is a hatch hidden behind stacks of empty storage shelves in the back of an abandoned supermarket in an outer district of the city. The immediate area is similarly abandoned, empty stores, flanked by several blocks of dive bars and clubs which cater to more niche tastes. A place where people can come and go unseen, or, if seen, not spoken of. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information.
◉ The safe house is a large open space, filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum.
◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries.
◉ While there were previously also NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam, these people have now been moved on to somewhere safer. A few of their belongings remain, discarded or accidentally abandoned.
◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her or El.
◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them.
◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet.
◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until SEPTEMBER 7. These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.
Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until September 7 (January 14). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.
If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, or if they'd like to join Morningstar, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below.
Please check out our January calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month.
As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in December and January will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on January 20 and close on January 27. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.
no subject
And that's not counting ... the rest.
But then Cain pivots, asking for his name. Keith's about to open his mouth to correct him when that last part comes out. It gets a mortified look from Keith, who, somehow, has never actually been called pretty in his life.]
Uhhh, I'm not—
[Nope. He stops. Shakes his head. Closes his mouth. Moves on.]
I'm Keith. At least you remembered the K. [Keith won't hold it against someone that they can't remember his name. So, he doesn't sound too bothered.] I can't remember what he said your name was, or if he even said it. Wasn't really up to remembering it.
[Note: Keith never remembered people's names up until a certain point in his life when he realized he could actually develop attachments. So, there is that.]
no subject
Cain.
[Just for the clarification.]
C, not a K. [Flashing a smirk, he wolfs down another bite of the pastry, licking the gooey paste from the center. This is one of the best things he's eaten in his life. Also, that reaction was entertaining, and he's divided between harassing Keith further or asking banal small talk questions.] What, you're not pretty?
[Okay, no small talk, then.]
no subject
No. [Is that the right word? Probably not.] I mean. It doesn't really matter. [A beat. Awkwardly.] Does it? [Another beat. Slow and staccato.] It doesn't to me.
[Smooth.]
no subject
Why not? You could really use it to your advantage. Lot of people willing to bend over for a cute face.
[Sorry, Keith, he's feeling predatory after such an awkward reply. This is why he got his dick sucked on his first day...]
Maybe we should ask for a second opinion. [Cain glances around, gauging the crowd of strangers.]
no subject
No, [he says, finding some of his spine and putting it out there. All of this would be a whole lot easier if it wasn't for that weird lover's spat.]
It doesn't matter. That isn't how I do things. [No, Keith much prefers blunt force.
Plus, he doesn't have a manipulative bone in his body. Clever and cunning, especially during battle? Yes, but manipulative? Not quite.]
no subject
Your loss.
[He rolls his shoulder, stretching out the joint.]
So how do you do things?
no subject
I don't know what you mean, [he says. He wishes he did, but he doesn't.]
I don't bother people who don't want to be bothered. And I don't trick them into things. [The first part is not even remotely true for Mr. Shout People Down.]
I don't know if I even answered your question. How do you do things?
no subject
In the end, he decides against. Borne from the practicality of someone used to pinching pennies, disregarding other bad habits.]
Any way I can. If I have to manipulate someone, get 'em to do what I want? [That's what he meant, then, by a pretty face.] Sure, I'd do whatever I can. Depends what's on the line.
[Calculated but not entirely honest. Even now to a complete stranger.]
You answered the question, yeah. [Dark eyes lower onto Keith in an evaluative glance.] Just a nice, oblivious, straight-laced kid.
no subject
Keith knows he can defend himself. If he were still in the group homes trying to be taken seriously so everyone would stay off his back? He would. But that was a decade ago now.
No, there's another angle to take.]
I've seen where that kind of thinking gets people. Having to feel like you have to use people. Having to hurt others just to get by, just to survive. [It's the Galra Empire in a nutshell. Needlessly violent—and if not that, needlessly manipulative, always trying to be in a competition with one another. The Blade of Marmora fought every day against those instincts, and Keith saw it constantly.
It was the same kind of thinking that made them so absolute. They may have sought something other than victory—but it was just the same.]
I'm not oblivious because I don't do that stuff. I've just seen where it leads people.
no subject
It's not a targeted attack, because Keith hasn't said anything to directly indict him in any personal offense, yet it rests somewhere beneath the intention.]
So you're better than that.
[Of course. Idealistic, then, not oblivious. Cain's expression is carefully neutral.]
Fine, I'll ask. Where've you seen it lead people?
no subject
Of course, he had given them a reason to.
... Of course, he'd given Shiro a reason to, too.]
Everyone's out for themselves. No one has any real connections or bonds. Even the people trying to fight that are hesitant to make a move, because while they're willing to risk their lives, there aren't enough to really fight back if too many die in an operation. [It's why they had to unite so carefully against Zarkon.]
I used to be that way, too. I thought I had a good reason. Turns out I hadn't.
no subject
Good for you.
[Sharp and dismissive, Cain shoves both hands into pockets. It's pretty clear he's shutting himself out of the conversation now. Sorry, Keith.]
Sounds like a messed up universe. [Like so many others he's heard described.] Anyway, see you around, yeah? Got an appointment with a rental unit. [That part, at least, is true.]
no subject
... Good luck. [It's weird that they got to the evils of the Galra Empire off of pastries and calling Keith pretty, but ... that's how it is.
And Keith is someone who's terrible at reading other people ... but he can tell when someone is absconding like this. He's definitely seen it before.
In himself.]
Don't let the landlord mess with you. [It's really hollow advice, but what else is he gonna say?]
no subject
[Hollow advice, but sound, enough to tug a brief flicker of amusement at the corner of Cain's mouth. He flicks fingers at his brow in a salute before he turns and walks away, back through the dense crowd of the festival's gathering.]