![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larkers) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
meadowlarklogs2019-06-09 06:08 pm
- !arrival log,
- blade runner: kd6-3.7,
- dceu: diana prince,
- detroit become human: markus,
- detroit become human: north,
- devil may cry: v,
- doctor who-verse: ianto jones,
- gangsta: alex benedetto,
- kingdom hearts: riku,
- kingdom hearts: sora,
- legacies: hope mikaelson,
- mcu: daisy johnson,
- mcu: peggy carter,
- npc: gaby,
- overwatch: soldier 76 (jack morrison),
- persona: goro akechi,
- star wars: cassian andor,
- star wars: jyn erso,
- starfighter: cain,
- stargate atlantis: elizabeth weir,
- stargate atlantis: john sheppard,
- stargate atlantis: rodney mckay,
- the 100: clarke griffin,
- the expanse: james holden,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- the man from uncle: gaby teller,
- the vampire diaries: caroline forbes
ARRIVAL LOG 011
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: November 5
WHAT: The eleventh arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion, 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 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.
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."
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.
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.
no subject
It's possible that the control doesn't extend through every inch of Akechi's life, but it's hard for him to see it as anything but tidy and perfect. Someone who calls themselves a god of control wouldn't cut corners, wouldn't leave things to chance. It may only be that Ren himself was the true wild card. The ace. The Joker. Random and unexpected.
Whereas Akechi never had control. Never had anything that the god claimed to have, because he was under it the entire time.
Anger spikes in his stomach, low and constant. His hands twist into fists, the anger apparent when he looks up at Ren—but doesn't yet speak. Not yet.]
Even if we had met sooner, would it have gone any other way? [he asks, alluding at his conclusions. Akechi has never felt like he had a grip on his life.
That was the problem.]
It seems that I was better off with my end.
no subject
but when he looks up his eyes are intense. he's still and steady, even with the flare of his own fury. ]
Yes. [ he absolutely believes that. ] Just accepting how things happened, is that your proof of justice? Your life and your heart aren't anyone else's to use. Not even a god.
[ there's sincerity in his voice, mixed with conviction. ]
You couldn't stand with us, but what you did for us gave us another reason to fight.
no subject
The mention of his justice—and the proof of it—cuts deep.]
You say that those things aren't for anyone to use, but have you considered that I don't know any other way? And what about now—if you asked me to do something, I'm quite certain I wouldn't be able to do anything but comply. Do you mean to success that there aren't any strings attached?
[Because Akechi clearly disagrees with the notion.]
no subject
It isn't about removing the chains completely, but when we become aware of them, they can't be ignored.
[ they had fought so hard up until that point, only to be dancing right into the hand of the god of control's sick game. Yaldabaoth had played them, but in the end got destroyed. to become subservient even knowing they could do something, that didn't sit right with him. ]
What would you have done with yours? Would you have fought if you were there?
no subject
[Unlike Masayoshi Shido, his father—or perhaps just like him.]
I knew the weight of my decisions. My actions. What I've done. Don't make the mistake of deciding it was ignorance that kept me on my path.
no subject
I'm not undervaluing that purpose.
[ there's a pause.
when Akechi had died, he spent days alone, retracing the steps that they had taken together, searching for something. the shared time they had spent in solidarity, and Akechi's path that he had tread alone. it had left an impression on Ren, despite as many times as Akechi tried to hurt him. ]
I want to know because I never got to ask you. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find the answers. [ perhaps it was because Akechi didn't know the impact that he had. not when he was alive, and not when he died. ] The justice that you pursued ...
no subject
But it also hides a simple truth: what is his proof of justice? Did he ever find the answer himself? If he was meant to ruin the world if he had succeeded, he wonders if it's in that. Did he want to see the world go to hell, with everyone going with it? Did he want society to see themselves for the mindless, wretched group that they were?
Yes, to some degree.
There is something implicitly painful in all of it. Something so undeniable that he can't overlook it. Whatever he sought it was the result of his experiences. His knowledge of his world. What lens he saw that world through.]
I'm sorry for your wasted efforts.
no subject
his gaze sets on him, dark and tired, but still sharp. he doesn't believe him in the slightest. ]
I'm not. [ he says, evenly. ] But it wasn't about where it came from.
[ though that sounds more like a statement and less on something that Akechi has to rebuke. it might take some time, but Ren doesn't mind working a little more for the answers. ]
Did you find anything out about this place?
no subject
That isn't even Akechi being difficult. He doesn't mind explaining stuff, but he knows what it'll loop back to in time.]
no subject
There's a lot that this could mean, for both of us. Not just our circumstances, but being here together.
no subject
There is a man here who's already claimed ownership over my power, simply because he shared a name with my persona. [He chooses not to reveal the godhood just yet.]
All in all, I believe that whatever brought us here, it released us at random. Perhaps we come in batches. There is certainly some evidence for that, at least from what I've already seen. But there are some who don't know how to draw conclusions based on obvious evidence right in front of them. ... That means we may not be as far behind in our deductions as we could be, simply because everyone is the same.
[A beat.]
Are you satisfied? I think there's more to be said about the people like us than the situation itself, which is both more and less nefarious than it appears.
no subject
he wonders if it's because he'll know Ren will stay that he tries to push on those boundaries.
despite that, he can try to get them on the right track together, and this was just the first step to it. Ren listens, and then gives him a brief nod. ]
Not in meaning for this world, but meaning to us.
[ there's a thoughtful pause after Akechi finishes. ]
So, it's best that we go along with this for now. Everyone here seems as clueless as we are to the larger questions, even if they have some of the smaller answers.
no subject
Nothing will change the path we took getting here. How I've always seen you, because circumstances necessitated it. That is all.
[And how has he seen him? As someone who offers a service. Who listens to him.
But certainly never as someone that Akechi cared about, right? Sure, maybe he did care, maybe a little. It's just that there was little value in that. He doesn't hate Joker, doesn't hate Ren—but they are opposing forces.
One of them should be dead. And the other should be relieved by that.
Should.]
no subject
I don't expect it to.
[ to the point and not without weight, but there's some acknowledgment coupled with warmth in his voice. he doesn't hide it. being here with Akechi isn't bad, and he won't make it bad. it feels like a blessing covered in complexity, which is how they've always been, even when they were friends. ]
But we can move forward together.
no subject
And he asked him to do that, hadn't he? Hadn't he asked him to finish it? He had. One might say the contract has been met.
Akechi isn't that someone, too uncomfortable with any other setup. He won't do friendship or moving "forward together." There is nothing to be gained from that.]
We can act as partners and allies for the time being. Ready to respond with ease and speed. I can act as Makoto did for a time for your team, but I'm afraid I'm no Futaba Sakura. I don't have those talents. Is that an acceptable arrangement?
no subject
Yeah, sure, if that's what you want. There are a lot of people here, there's no replacement for Futaba, but there are other people with resources, too.
[ even if he misses Futaba dearly. even if he wished the rest of them were here. they're not, and the two of them will have to work it out on their own.
Akechi will have to notice, eventually. he'll have to change. ]
We'll figure out something.
[ Ren had a knack for finding the right people. ]
no subject
Then again, he would have the moment his father was elected.
Either way, there was only one person who knew about the depth of that life. He was sitting across from him now.]
There will undoubtedly be some among our number who'll prove intriguing, if our own cases are anything to make assumptions by. But we'll be wise to go beyond them.
[And, if needed, expose what's necessary to get a leg up. In time, Akechi will be surprised by how ... few people have turned them all in, exposing them to their own benefit.]