spherememing | 001. Test Drive Meme.

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001. Test Drive Meme.

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Welcome, welcome, welcome.

The Council is well aware of how hard it is to get used to that whole ~~kidnapping~~ being brought to a new place you don’t understand is, and because of that, each month they host an open welcome party for all residents both old and new. The party and its theme and location vary by month, and November’s theme is funnily enough Thanksgiving. The location is in the market dome, and all of the stalls have been closed in favor of long, large and communal tables for sitting around and eating and talking. The Market dome is large, roughly three city blocks would fit comfortably inside of it. The stalls themselves are lined with bright lights, giving the activity within more of a carnival atmosphere than that of a normal shopping experience. Around you, the air hums almost, teaming with life and vibrancy among all sides. The way that the tables are seated encourages some intimacy despite the space, offering a large family sort of feeling versus something like a restaurant.

The people there are happy to see new people, that much is evident. People who one doesn’t know are greeted with smiles for the large part, and questions are eagerly answered, even if there is a slight ‘no one really knows’ vagueness to them. For the most part, of course. No city is ever a Utopia, and there are those who give newly arrived people flat looks, and answer questions with short and curt monotoned responses.

There are conversations happening at some parts of the table that aren’t meant for you to hear; they’re just whispered snippets of something about ‘Cruz doesn’t know what she wants.’ Or ‘Tearing is keeping it all under wraps of course, because that’s what she does.’ More common are grumbled complaints about ‘that bastard Tinder won’t stop just because…’ When they notice someone listening, they definitely glare at the listener. But whatever else, and however many secrets they may be keeping from the newcomers, the people complaining seem honest about it.

There’s a huge food table on one side that’s completely loaded with everything one could want. Turkey, and all of the fixings, including vegetarian and vegan options for those who would require them. (Though, someone leans over to mention, “the meat’s not really an animal anyway.”) The food is definitely sort of a potluck, given the variety of types of food in various sorts of serving dishes and states of presentation. Some of the foods include some weird stuff that looks terrible but is delicious. Probably. There are foods thee colors the likes of which only would be found on Earth if someone added an insane amount of food color to them.

Do try the grey stuff though. It’s delicious, ask the dishes. The blue milk? Less so.

However, food isn’t the only thing at the meeting. On the opposite side from the food, there are smaller tables set up with people sitting behind them. In front of the tables are homemade brightly colored signs that advertise things like jobs and clubs. The people and interests here in The Sphere are hugely varied and people are just so earnest to tell newcomers about them. They’re earnest to the point where they may just actually reach out and grab a person in order to force them to stop and to listen to whatever spiel they happen to be working on. Booths that are in attendance for jobs include: Agriculture: “help grow the food that feeds us all! Farming is life!”, The library: “No skill needed! We’ll teach you what you need to know!” The school system: “Teachers wanted! Education is the right of everyone!” Maintenance: “Help keep the domes clean!” As well as various restaurant booths looking for help for both servers and chefs.

For the hobbies involved they are even more varied. Book club: “we live in a multiverse, let’s read the books from it! With wine!” Garden club: “we want to grow stuff on our terms!” Sprinkled among are various skill learning clubs, among them: woodworking club, smithing, robotics, technology, first aid. It seems that despite the fact that no one is required to work in the City, people are still offering skills as needed.

As the night progresses, music starts, and there’s dancing and more adult fare. Liquor is broken out, of various sources from various worlds, including some that offer the Sphere’s own label on them. If discrete enough inquiries are made, a passcode to the Black Market hidden behind some of the stalls is offered. The entrance is hidden enough that someone needs to be looking for it, and there is a rather large bouncer guarding the door and asking for the proper passcode. The passcode of the day happens to be turnips.

Inside the black market is large, but much more dimly lit than the regular market dome that the welcome party was held inside of. There are various pockets of people clustered under bright neon lights. The lights, someone confides to you, are code for what they’re offering. And nearly everything is on offer if a person has the ability to make a trade. Things from home, character skills and even favors tend to be the currency here, but watch out: the hawkers within are shrewd and sharp. If they make a deal with someone, it’s nearly always going to favor them. Eventually.

There’s also a large and loud party happening inside. Think of a rave with a large amount of people who happened to be a bit out of their minds. Drugs aren’t given freely here, they’re too valuable, but should someone want to figure out what they’re rolling on, eventually someone will ask or offer. The drug that they are currently using is called ‘self’ and it’s something that affects your character in an intensely personal way. For some, it’s an experience like your favorite cocktail mixed with a vicodin, and for others it’s just like being drunk. For still more people, it’s like ecstasy without the side effects.

The drug has no physically addicting properties.

Welcome to my nightmare.
For anyone within the architecture dome, the library dome, the sunlight rec dome and any personal dome that people chose, around midnight people will have a curiously tired sensation. They just need to rest their eyes for a moment, or some may fall asleep for longer. No matter the length of time that the character is out, the nightmare infects them, and when they wake they will be filled with a curious but urgent sensation.

They have lost something. The loss can be a physical object, an emotion, a memory, a person or perhaps a sense of self. If the lost person is currently present in the game, they will be unable to be seen by the character who is experiencing the waking nightmare. Urgency will grip the character, because the longer the sensation goes on for, the worse it becomes. Characters can search and scrounge for their loss everywhere, but until the nightmare is over, they will not find whatever it is. Even if it is themselves. Instead, they may be frantic, angry, or just play old scared to death. They need to find this at whatever cost. Where they may find it is something that their own brains will settle on, but of course until the nightmare is over, they will not be able to.

The nightmare ends with either the character falling into a normal, restful sleep naturally or through some other means (someone might mention the infirmary has sedation medication just for the is purpose, or that there’s always a brick) or when they are woken with the intervention of someone else. The intervention of someone else is entirely up to you, and can come from a player character or a NPC, depending on how the player is feeling with the thread. By intervention we mean someone who is able to talk the person out of the nightmare, or to slap or shake them out, or to use some sort of trick that shows them that they are indeed inside of a nightmare. The knowledge that someone is affected by a nightmare must come from an external source, and should come from a character that your character would trust. After all, would you believe someone who told you that you were in a nightmare if you didn’t know that? That said, the best way to deal with waking someone is to remove them from the affected domes. Too bad you don’t know which domes are affected.

Harvest time

The Council hopes that you enjoyed the party the other night, because now it’s time to put out the call for volunteers to come in and help with replenishing the city’s stores from the fields and orchards in the agricultural domes. Your friend neighborhood councillor in charge, Annie Cruz has sent out a message that volunteers who come in to help out will be given payment in the form of lunch and beer and wine.

The jobs involved are varied, and involve harvesting crops such as corn, picking apples or grapes and handing out water or the boxed lunches provided. People will be assigned an area and given a bucket or basket in order to put the fruits of their labor inside of. Either way, there’s a festive atmosphere, and most people who have been there longer than your character seem to be old hat at this.

There’s even a large tub of grapes for people to smash with their feet (“but for fuck’s sake make sure they’re clean first!”). If asked about it, someone will explain that the city makes its own wine and brews its own beer every season! A good chunk of the things picked, you are told slyly, will probably end up drunk rather than eaten, “once the off the top happens.” If asked to explain it, a character will just touch their nose slyly and not say any more. It’s also explained that the grapes crushed with people’s feet don’t actually end up in the general bottles of wine: they’re not savages here!

So, jump in and help with something, or sit down and have lunch and just get to know the people around you with a glass of wine or beer. You’re all here for the foreseeable future, might as well!

Network!

In the Sphere, the network is neural, and accessed via touching the glowing golden circle behind your character’s ear. They can identify themselves with a screen name if you so desire, but messages should be one of three ways or a combination of them. 1. Audio. Your character thinks audible words onto the network. 2. Writing: Your character thinks text into the network. 3. Video. Your character projects a broadcast of a video of themselves onto the network. Replies are determined by the player.

The network needs to be accessed by choice, so character broadcasts are not automatically beamed directly into people’s heads. The Sphere isn’t that rude.

Private messages are allowed by pressing and holding and pressing and holding again as you picture the person in your mind. This can be an image or a name, err more on the side of things being more accessible than less.

Wildcard!
This can be meeting a possible roommate or dorm mate (if one is choosing to go that route), the use of a communal kitchen, waking up and dealing with the things that you were just told about the City, yelling at the sphere, or anything else that your little heart desires. Go nuts.

OOC note: if you feel that something requires an NPC interaction, please go to here and reply with a link and a brief summary of why you need it and the mod will try and be accomodating.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. Welcome

There's definitely something about this place that leaves Rick feeling uneasy. It's not just the fact that neither Carl nor Michonne or Judith for that matter were there and that left him anxious to find a way back to them. This place seemed Impossible, impossible in a way that is beyond any other impossible places that he'd found since the world ended.

So, Rick can be found observing for the most part, looking for familiar faces. He'll eat when something appeals to him. Food seems plenty but the habit of not over indulging has become ingrained in him. He's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

B. Harvest

Communal effort, at least, is familiar. Rick doesn't waste any time in making an effort to get involved in the harvest work. At different points he can be found harvesting different foods or offering water to other workers. He's still trying to gather information but keeping his hands busy helps with the anxiety held in the back of his mind.

C. Network
audio - un: grimes

Who's really in charge of this place?

[ If this ain't a weird way to communicate after so long without even cell phones being a part of daily life. ]

D. Wildcard

[ Feel free to switch styles or hit me with something different! ]

It's not so much another shoe that drops, but rather a person in the seat next to him. Eric slides a chilled glass of beer toward him as a bit of greeting. He almost didn't recognize Rick, and though he doesn't know the man all that well after their first, initial meeting as he was lying prone on a pile of musty couch cushions, he's extending the olive branch.

"It's almost surreal, isn't it?"

Rick glances over at Eric when the other takes the seat next to him. Even after quite a bit of time in Alexandria he doesn't know him all that well, not nearly as well as Aaron anyway but he takes the beer with a nod of gratitude.

"Surreal would be one word for it, yeah."

"You know, when everything happened, I thought that there couldn't be anything crazier than that. I was clearly wrong."

He gestures to the busy Merchant dome around them, and the snow that lacks temperature.

Rick can’t say that he disagrees and his arms cross over his chest as he takes in the gestured sight again.

“It makes you wonder which is real, or if any of it is real.”

"It's a hard thing to debate, but I'd like to think that this is as real as it gets."

That, or they're all insane.

Rick isn’t so sure he’d like to think this is real. Being that Eric is here where he shouldn’t be and people that should be around aren’t and all. But rick has the presence of mind not to say as much.

“I’d feel better about it if everyone was here.”

Eric hums at the sentiment, nodding. It would be better with the rest of the Alexandrians..or most of them, anyway. It must be difficult for Rick not having his people here, as well.

"I know what you mean. Are you least enjoying the festivities?"

Rick doesn’t know exactly what the truth is to that question. He’s more suspicious of the festivities than anything else which certainly makes them difficult to enjoy fully.

“I don’t know what to think of them honestly.”

With where they're from, it's hard not to look at something like this without a hint of skepticism.

"Don't think about it, just drink your beer and have a pretzel, Rick."

Rick raises a brow and snorted slightly. “Are you able to turn your brain off just like that?”

The beer is gonna be enjoyed regardless.

"It's not quite like that, but if this is some sort of shared delusion, it doesn't have to be all bad. We've seen enough of that back home."

Eric takes a drink of his own beer.

“Hard to stop trying to figure it out,” Rick said, taking a drink of his beer and furrows his brow briefly. The idea of a shared delusion makes it no more comforting. It provides a sense of urgency to figure everything out.

So about that whole 'your family isn't here thing'. Yeah that's a lie. Not that Carl really even knew about it at first, waking up in his own pod? Room? Whatever it was, it wasn't where he'd fallen asleep, and it wasn't the familiar blanket of stars surrounding the window. Needless to say, he'd been a bit freaked out by that, but he's an adaptable kid. Carl wonders idly if this means he's got the augment the Atroma supplied him with, too, or if this is something completely different.

Waking up in new places was really fucking old..

The market is thriving and reminiscent of previous planets he's traveled to, and even friendlier. He tries to reject the gifts thrown his way, but eventually relents and at least takes the scarf being offered. After looking around a bit more, getting the lay of the sphere, he moves to the communal tables for a seat so he can watch. What he doesn't expect is to see his dad sitting at one of them. He hasn't made eye contact with Carl just yet, but he always notices.

"D-dad?"

You can't forget the sound of your child's voice and really it hadn't been that long since Rick had heard it so there was no forgetting and his eyes instantly land on Carl before he's getting up and closing what little distance there is.

"Carl," he looks him over as if making sure he's all in one piece. "When did you get here?" Did they come at the same time and were separated?

Rick?

[It's really you, isn't it?]

A man named Max Tinder runs the council, of which there's three, but if we can believe what he says, they all arrived her a long time ago, the same as we did. I haven't figured out what that might mean yet.

[ now that’s a familiar voice and Rick is glad to hear it. ]

What else do you know?

[ a pause.. ]

Where are you? Is anyone else here?

[It's clear from the tone of his voice he'll be answering all of Rick's questions once they're in person. He may be hopeful and the spirit of optimism sometimes, but he's also not stupid. There's no telling who listens to this thing.]

The residential domes, but I can meet you. If you mean from home, just me and Eric. Now you.

I'll meet you there.

[ He's not surprised by the answer but he's still mildly disappointed and wary because of it. ]

[Normally with newcomers, Aaron isn't keen on telling them where he and Eric sleep, but this is Rick, and he tells him the dome number.]

I'll be here.

Now that right there, Rick? That's a loaded goddamn question, isn't it?

[ Hey, Rickles. Miiiised yoooou~ ]

Edited 2018-12-19 02:13 (UTC)

You have got to be fucking kidding.

[ now he’s thinking this place might just be some level of hell. ]

Ooo-hoo, listen to you. I am digging the spark. It's just a damn shame that your bark is worse than your bite.

[ This is definitely the Bad Place. ]

[ Someone put him out of his misery already. ]

One thing I know is you certainly aren’t in charge here.

[ just ignores the bait for now.. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001. Test Drive Meme.

Rick Grimes ( The Walking Dead )

A;;

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A;; Sorry not sorry

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c. audio - un: justaaron

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C;; un: negan

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