meadowlarklogs | ARRIVAL LOG 011

ARRIVAL LOG 011

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: November 5
WHAT: The eleventh arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion, loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #011

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 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.

"Stay here," one of the guards barks, right before looking to the guard to their left. "You've got the honors of passing on the message from the boss?" he asks. The woman nods, and then steps just in front of him. "Now listen up, everyone! This is way warmer than I'd ever go for, but he's got a soft spot for you." She offers a twisted smile, as if she isn't keen to play messenger. "Hello, everyone. You're likely wondering how you got here." She pauses to roll her eyes at the joke – because it is a joke, albeit a bad one (in her opinion). "That's not something I can share right now. There are too many hands invested in this pie. But I need you all to stick to the festival, and not go looking for trouble. Don't hurt anyone. Don't look for a police officer. Have fun out there until it's time to process you. I don't actually know how that goes, but the ones like you? They've got it down to a science." She pauses here, looking puzzled. She's read this message in advance, but there are still aspects of it that stand out. Oh, they were warned about the others. To avoid them at all costs, because they'd be looking. "And sorry for the scrubs – I know they aren't great for a party, but they make you stand out. Have a good time. Just don't get arrested out there. I can only pull out my Beijing contacts so many times." This message is read entirely off her neural implant – not that the people dressed in scrubs in front of her would realize that.

After she's done, the last of the guards turn to 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, there are many food stalls selling foods in mason jars, as well as a stage off in the distance with people in colorful outfits moving in unison. It seems that you've arrived at some kind of festival, and believe it or not, this is low-key compared to some of the last.

◉ 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 – and that includes the lengthy message passed on from the mysterious patron.

> HARVEST FESTIVAL

The message from El comes the same as usual: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it.

Well, everyone, it's time for another round of saving your newly arrived displaced kidnapees. This time they're not blending in at all. It's white scrubs all the way. Probably doesn't really go with a harvest festival – is that some corn-in-the-cob in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Anyway, have fun out there.

The New Amsterdam Annual Harvest Festival begins with a parade bright and early in the morning. Rather than being dressed up with large holographic displays with AR functions that interact with everyone's neural implants, this parade is au naturale. The floats themselves are handmade with careful craftsmanship and designs, especially given the lack of wood available in this world. Everything is bright and colorful. Between each float, there are large dancing troupes dressed in lavish costumes full of colors. Some of the dances featured are unique to this world and its future, while others pay homage to harvest festivals of the past, hailing from regions of Japan, Korea, China, India, Nigeria and the Philippines. The garb itself is unique to these regions – relics of a previous world, celebrating the harvest and promise of what may come in the future.

Unlike many New Amsterdam events, there is very little room for technology and heavy advertisements. While numerous subsidiaries provide donations for the harvest festival, they do so with the understanding that their involvement will be obscured. The harvest festival is meant to act as a way of celebrating the natural way of the world, and of stepping away from technology for a time. That said, there is little emphasis on any artificial intelligence or mentions of the Xelkoven War – it seems as if this celebration is meant as more of a pure revelry of what the Earth used to provide, rather than what humans managed to avoid.

Once the parade is done, there is a large festival in progress. Every worker at the harvest festival is there because they believe in this celebration, and thus they volunteered to be involved. Anyone who wants to be there because they chose to volunteer can. As for the native volunteers – a large number of them will be sporting numerous tattoos of unique symbols that have been seen around the city (most notably the Insomniac's Ball and the shrines to the Displaced). They'll look at any of the Displaced that they recognize with admiration, but won't be quick to engage with them.

The harvest festival is just a one-day event, but it's jam packed full of things to do!

> HARVESTS

While the hydroponic farms around New Amsterdam are always working to keep the citizens fed, they celebrate their harvests once a year at the harvest festival. Many of these farms come together and sell their vegetables in mason jars and even create various sauces for citizens to purchase. Want some delicious spaghetti sauce that's ready to go? What about taco sauce or something to make quick tikka masala? These food stalls have everything ready to go – and they're all too eager to share what they've made. The stalls all offer discounts to anyone who buys their jars in bulk, hoping that they can happily impart their delicious and natural foods to the citizens of New Amsterdam. While hydroponic farms on a whole are "less natural" in how they grow food, these jars of food are less processed. What's in there is, for the most part, pickled or cooked down into a sauce, making it so that New Amsterdam citizens can enjoy a flavorful meal.

> CHARITY

In a continuation of the mindset during Halloween, the harvest festival doubles as a site for charitable activity around the city. Gaby will ask Morningstar's people to set up a booth to collect any clothing donations, and it'll be obvious that while this booth is not noticeably linked to Morningstar, it's set up every year in hopes of gathering these clothing donations for people in need. The Morningstar booth isn't the only of its kind, and many of the food stalls with mason jars will also have a box for people to donate goods should they want to help people in need. Unlike every other New Amsterdam festival, there are no food trucks. Instead, there is an all-day buffet that constantly rotates out food so that people who are hungry can have a full meal as the day goes on. Everything is free. However, this buffet includes no alcohol – as if to counterbalance the drunken revelry during the Halloween celebrations, there is none on the premises here.

> FERTILITY

In the past, harvest festivals have almost always been linked to fertility. While fertility is less of a concern in 2511 – thanks to the rigid population control – there is a sense of hope that Earth itself, as well as the terraforming colonies, will eventually give way to a future where these mandates aren't as necessary. For now, the harvest festival celebrates the idea of fertility, as well as allowing the Earth to replenish itself. Fertility is an aspect in that, after all. One section of the festival's stalls is dedicated to this ideal, and has a unique tradition brought over from Japan. Each of the stalls feature large phallic structures on the top, and like the parade floats, these are newly made every year from scratch. In addition, the food stalls also partake in an all-natural popsicle contest (after all, it wouldn't be a New Amsterdam festival without some kind of food contest). These popsicles come in all different flavors – from strawberry to pickle brine – and are all slender and phallic in their presentation.

> DANCING

Throughout the day, music will always be playing while some form of dancing goes on on the main stage. Most of the day, this dancing is thanks to the dance troupes that come in and perform, even though they've already done it at length on the parade routes. Many of the volunteers will be put in charge of keeping these dancers fed and hydrated so that they can keep at it – though they're always happy for the opportunity that the festival offers them. When these staged shows aren't happening, they have interludes where festival-goers can come on stage and learn more simplified versions of the different dances from the Earth's cultural history. Once it's dusk, there is a two-hour long dance contest where these troupes compete with one another, putting on a unique show that they've prepared for the event.

> WRESTLING

The other event that goes on all day is an event borrowed from Korea: ssireum. Multiple people enter this wrestling contest, and thanks to the amateur-nature of it, there is little concern about who wrestles with one another (outside of age, of course). The sport itself involves two opponents holding on to each other's red and blue band called a satba. Throughout the contest, they try to put the other person down, making it so that their upper body touches the mat. There are rules set up to ensure that no one brings any real harm to their opponent, and since it's wrestling, there is no room for any dirty tricks like punching, kicking, biting or anything similar. When it's over, the person who's wracked up the most wins throughout the day is given a sash that declares them "The Most Powerful."

> SAFEHOUSE

Located under an abandoned hover-bike garage, access to the safehouse is a hatch in the floor beside a rusted set of metal shelves that used to hold tools and supplies. The immediate area is similarly abandoned: full of rundown and dilapidated warehouses and forgotten businesses, where numerous people squat in hopes of having some stability because they can't afford a place themselves. 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 safehouse is a large space with multiple rooms for storage, with the largest of the rooms 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.

◉ There is a mini-bar set up in the kitchen. The quality of the alcohol inside is akin to what someone might get from the well, but it's well-stocked.

◉ 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 NOVEMBER 09 (JUNE 17). 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.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

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 NOVEMBER 09 (JUNE 17). 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.

As a note: all new characters arrive after the parade ends.

If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, 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 June calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month, as well as some additional notes from the mods.

As a note to the entirety of our playerbase, we are at 58 players, which is 2 players away from our game cap! This is very exciting for us as moderators, especially as we quickly head toward our one year anniversary! There is a very good chance that this will be our last "full" arrival log for a while, though we have plans (and ideas!) in mind for future months.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in June 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 July 1 at 12 AM UTC and close on July 8 at 12 AM UTC. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I could but I don't think I'm gonna.

[ it's a rare thing these days to hear the undercurrent of laughter in his words but it's there because he's not really planning on just standing in her way especially when she's laden down with...a lot of food. ]

You having some kind of party?

[ what other reason was there for so much food? ]

You're such a twat.

[ but jyn's own tone is tinged with mirth and a smile touches her lips. stupid marcos, her stupid friend. she doesn't know how it happened, she doesn't even know if they are friends in all honesty but she is going with it for now until she is told otherwise. ]

Stocking up. Come on, you can help me put them away.

[ in the mysterious apartment! ]

All I did was come over to say hi and now I'm being put to work.

[ but that's as much argument as he'll put up before reaching to take the basket from her so he could hold it. the look he gives her tells her not to argue, he knows she can do it but he wants to do it for her. ]

I didn't know you cooked.

[ that's what these foodstuffs seemed to be for, in his eyes. ]

I don't cook. The men cook.

[ the men in their apartment do most, if not all, of the cooking in the house. jyn takes out the trash and loads the dishwasher and keeps all the plants alive, but her cooking is generally a waste of food.

she doesn't know what to do with herself when she's not holding the jars, so she tucks her hands into her pockets as she leads him down the street toward the apartment. ]

I guess I could learn.

The men cook. [ he repeats the words and laughs under his breath. that's...refreshing, at least. his mother had done the cooking in his household when his family had still been just that: a family. he shifts the jars to get a better grip on them and falls into step with her. ]

Not something you have to do especially if someone else is willing. I've pretty much been living on microwaveable food for...a few years now. [ no real time for cooking when you were constantly on your guard or on the run. ]

Do you wanna learn?

Not really.

[ she's being honest! cassian will always cook for her, she knows this, and if he won't, she can subsist off food truck burgers and raw veggies for the rest of her life. she doesn't care. ]

Ma-- my mother tried to teach me, when I was very young. I hated it. It's too imprecise. A pinch! A pinch in my hand is going to be different than a pinch in your hand.

[ she needs exact measurements and timings and cooking doesn't always come with that and she doesn't like it. it's too intuitive. baking is like a science, she is much better at that. ]

Edited 2019-06-13 07:09 (UTC)

My mother used to cook too. I sometimes liked to be in the kitchen with her, handing her things, but that's as far as lessons got before she stopped.

[ because she died and his father turned him out. ]

I managed to teach myself a few things here and there but I'm no chef. I don't eat a lot and when I do, it's takeout or something I can heat up. That's the extent of my cooking skills so if someone teaches you, you can teach me.

Is she..?

[ there's no delicate way to ask if his mum is still alive, but there was something final about the end of this cooking lessons. maybe she is only reaching because she wants the solidarity of losing a parent -- which is the worst thing to hope for.

whatever, she's not a great person, she knows this. ]

Dead? [ he can fill in the blanks easy enough. it's not like she can ask if his mother's here so he nods in response to her unasked question. ] Both my parents are gone.

[ sometimes, he misses his mother. he knows that she hadn't been strong enough to fight his father, to protect him and while there's bitterness in his heart and mind that threatens to suffocate him some days, he knows it wasn't her fault.

his father can rot. ]

Yours?

She died when I was eight. My father...

[ she trails off because she doesn't want the pity of admitting it was barely a month ago. it's not like jyn has ever bothered to cope with saw and galen, she cried the once and then shoved it down to the bottom of her emotional grand canyon. ]

They're both gone too.

[ he reacts to her news by reaching over and clasping her shoulder briefly but firmly. he knows what it's like, recent or not, it's a thing that never really leaves you. your parents leave their marks, good or bad, and they stick with you. ]

I'm not going to say sorry because I know how much I hated that when my mother died but I get it. I know what it's like.

[ he gives her a muted nod before letting go of her shoulder and taking a breath. ]

We keep going despite that.

[ in truth, no one has ever offered her condolences. saw had tried, when she was eight, but cut himself off before he could stumble over the words. when hadder had told her about tanith he told her not to apologize as if that had been an intention of hers.

it hadn't occurred to her. ]

It's been a long time.

[ jyn erso is a liar. ]

Doesn't matter.

[ liar or not, time eases the wound but it never really heals. you're lucky if it scabs and only to be peeled off every so often. ]

It's been a long time for me too. [ but the emotions sneak up on you when you're reminded of something related to them or you just have an errant thought that sends you spiraling down. ] You don't need to explain. I get it.

[ she nods once, lips pursed, shoving it all back down again. ]

Yeah.

[ she just wanted to stock her shelves with food because she's spent too long being food insecure, she didn't want to think about her parents! why have these past couple of weeks kept bringing up reminders of a past she doesn't want to think about! it's not like repressing all her emotions is a genuinely bad idea.

of course not. ]

If I learn I'll teach you.

You'd teach me how to cook?

[ marcos tries to imagine the two of them in a kitchen, still trying to learn how to cook and snickers. ]

That seems like bad news for your fancy kitchen.

I already set a pan on fire, [ jyn offers with a shrug, seemingly unbothered by her incredible lack of cooking power. ]

Cassian had to throw it in the rubbish.

That's impressive. [ he snickers and shakes his head. ] Cassian is your...?

[ jacket boy? ]

Friend. [ a beat, mouth twisting as she turns them down a corner toward the financial district. ] Teammate? I don't know.

[ which is true! she doesn't know. he is just her platonic war buddy. ]

You don't know? [ seems like an odd answer. ] Why not?

[ shouldn't you know what he is, jyn? ]

It's. We're friends.

[ that is more determined, almost to compensate for her confusing. IT'S COMPLICATED FACEBOOK STATUS. ask him, he is better at this sort of thing! ]

I'm not-- friendly.

Edited 2019-06-17 19:26 (UTC)

[ marcos is no expert on relationships as evidenced by the current state of his life. so, he's definitely not going to be pressing and prying and trying to get her to admit something that she doesn't want to admit. ]

Oh.

[ he nods. ]

Well, it's good to have friends even if you're not friendly. Just makes them all the more valuable, doesn't it?

Yeah.

[ talking about relationships of any kind gives her hives, so jyn changes the subject brusquely. ]

Still in the safehouse?

I am. No money to go elsewhere yet.

[ so, safehouse. he's sure he'll figure out something soon even if it's squatting somewhere but he's not sure how that works here. ]

I've had a couch offered to me but it's temporary.

We've got a couch too.

[ throwing that out there casually. he can still look homeless with a temporary home. ]

Don't you also have three other people that live with you?

[ he doubts she's checked with them on this and he doesn't want to be asleep there one morning and have jacket guy or someone far scarier come upon him and think he was some kind of vagrant burglar. ]

They might not want you giving up their couch to someone they don't know.

harvests

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