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

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Two, and I'll donate some money to the food drive. Final offer.

[ it's the equivalent of three jars but without cassian (and thus jyn) getting to be greedy about the whole thing. let other people have mango chutney, cassian, damn. ]

And I'll ask him after you come dance with me. He can be your relief.

[ you know what, he was probably going to donate that third jar to the food drive anyway, so it probably works out? he is sharing PLENTY of food okay, there are so many jars to go around. ]

[ he lets out the tiniest sigh. ]

Fine.

[ if only because he wants to watch the struggle of daisy trying to get illya onto the dance floor. ]

[ success! daisy makes no effort to hide her delight at this victory, and though cassian only sighs the smallest amount, she is all too eager to drag him onto the floor. ]

You can consider this your first act of charity. [ saving some poor soul from getting glared to death, probably. ] I'll even let you pick the dance.

[ because, obviously, cassian andor knows how to shake his groove thing. wild expectations are set in place here. ]

Some people regularly commit acts of charity. [ that much is easy here. cassian has always been about helping The People. saving them from illya probably counts as helping The People. ]

I do not know any local dances. [ she's not wrong actually, cassian knows how to dance! mostly because sometimes being undercover necessitated knowing certain customs, certain dances. he's been watching the people out tonight, but he doesn't think he could capture it perfectly. ] Unless you just want to wing it.

Who cares?

[ daisy does not. she is swaying comfortably to the beat, doing the classic white dad shuffle dance, so whatever dance cassian wants to wow her with will be fine with her. who cares if it's a local standby? not her. (they're also not local, and she doesn't make much effort to pretend to be most days.) ]

Let's wing it. Dazzle me with your best moves.

I thought the point was to look like natives? [ that was the whole point to the IDs and jobs and everything else! still, it's not a real argument. he's just being contrary. ]

[ he wrinkles his nose, but he does start at the very least swaying. he's been watching the people dance for a while, he can mimic their idle shuffles to the music. that's always easy. ]

I am making no promises on that front.

Jyn and I are rich sisters who moved to the city recently. So, not locals.

[ they've lowkey practiced their cover story over takeout and bad movies on the holoscreen. never mind the fact that they don't have the same accents or even the same facial features. people believe what they are told, because that's easier than looking for the truth. ]

I know you know how to boogie, Cassian. You've got that whole vibe.

[ the "i learned how to do many things to survive" vibe. ]

Natives of somewhere on the planet. [ he's sure there are dances from all over earth that are present in new amsterdam, but things from fest or yavin 4 or coruscant probably do not exist here! ]

[ he huffs a bit. the vibe. yeah, he sure has learned many things. too many things. dancing is a mild one compared to idk how to murder 101. ] I never said I could not dance.

[ just that he didn't want to stand out! he's still just sort of swaying, albeit faster now, trying to match the pace and moves of the people around them. ]

[ he's too literal for his own good. no one is paying attention to them, anyway, and even if they were, it's not as though making up a dance could be anything but social media worthy in this day and age. who knows, maybe a dance from the moon of some far-off planet would be the next macarena.

not that anyone here was doing the macarena. thank god. ]

Do you want me to teach you a classic Earth dance, Cassian?

[ she's going to teach him the chicken dance. ]

[ more like an overthinker! he just... can't stop thinking about these things, over analyzing every possible aspect of a situation. it's just how his brain works, let him live daisy! ]

[ the look he shoots her is vaguely suspicious. ]

You have to show me what it looks like first.

Edited 2019-07-26 16:49 (UTC)

[ don't ruin her good plan with logic and reasoning. ]

I'll show you while I teach you. Come on, it's really easy.

[ the beginning of the chicken dance is much like a classic hoe-down; she loops her arm in his, and leads him in a gentle, swaying circle to the beat. nothing weird or particularly stupid about it. they actually look like they're doing normal things. ]

[ he wrinkles his nose because this feels... ridiculous. though he supposes many dances look strange to outsiders. it's too simple, there has to be more and he is suspicious about what daisy is going to demonstrate. ]

Does this dance have a name?

[ she tries to sound nonchalant about her answer, like she really can't remember. like the name of it just... casually, conveniently escaped her mind. ]

I'm sure it does. I just... you know, I can't think of it.

[ but the way she can barely keep herself from cracking a grin as she shows him how to tuck his hands under his armpits and flap his 'wings' totally betrays her. ]

[ daisy you're full of shit and cassian knows it. ]

Why does it seem like you are just making this up as you go along? Either that or it is far too specific and it does have a name. Probably a bird.

[ he is not flapping his arms like wings yet, but she might be able to get it out of him. ]

Oh, come on, I couldn't make this up if I tried.

[ did you know? the tune associated with the "chicken dance polka" was written in the late 1950s by a swiss-german restaurateur and accordion player. he also tended a flock of ducks and geese. he started performing the song at his restaurant in 1963 at the age of 71 years. ]

You're doing great. Flap your arms.

This is ridiculous.

[ and yet?? he starts flapping his arms anyway?? he wants to blame jyn, even though it's daisy right in front of him. maybe it's both. ]

Just tell me what kind of bird I am supposed to be.

You're a Cassian-bird, that's the whole point.

[ he looks very adorable flapping his arms. she has a feeling he will not do the next part even if she demands it, but daisy still imitates twisting her hips all the same. look, it's perfectly reasonable. people nearby are following along, enjoying her cheesy dance moves. ]

Now shake your tailfeathers.

[ she is Correct! the Look he shoots daisy is the most skeptical it's been yet. if he was... feeling less like himself, it wouldn't be much of an issue, he'd just mimic her out of necessity, but he does feel like himself with daisy here; there's no weird show happening of trying to blend in, he's just dancing with his friend. he can decide whatever he wants in that case!! ]

[ oh. daisy is his friend. ]

I am the kind of bird without tailfeathers.

[ they are friends. that's just the truth of the matter. maybe it's jyn's fault that they are roommates, but it's the trust and respect between them that's made them friends.

daisy likes to rile cassian up, but she would never force him to do anything he genuinely didn't want to do. he's skeptical, sure, but he's going with it. she's just milking it for all it's worth. ]

Birds have to have something. Maybe you just have a stubby bird butt to shake.

[ yes, this is the conversation. ]

[ cassian doesn't know how to make genuine friends. he can build and construct fake relationships, but real ones confuse him more often than not. maybe the realization that daisy is his friend is late, but at least he's made it. ]

[ still squinting, he still refuses to shake a bird butt. ]

There are all kinds of birds in the universe. There's no telling on whether or not all of them have a bottom area large enough to shake.

[ he's also still awkwardly flapping his arms though. ]

They have to have something.

[ by now, daisy has moved on to repeating the steps of the dance. cassian, for his credit, is still flapping his bird wings, but he looks the smallest bit foolish (in daisy's eyes) for getting stuck on step two of four. the dance could have been over by now! possibly twice! ]

It won't kill you to be a little silly.

They can shake a leg. [ which fine! he'll stick out his leg and shake that instead of his butt. it's not like he knows the tried and true steps of the chicken dance anyway. ]

[ he... doesn't frown, but he does feel kind of awkward suddenly, even though the dance should have been doing that already. ]

Maybe it would. It is not like I have had many chances for that. [ it's only half sarcasm. ]

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ARRIVAL LOG 011

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