spherememing | 001. Test Drive Meme.

Entry tags:

001. Test Drive Meme.

TDM
FAQ | Rules | Taken | Mod Contact| Reserves | Application | Log Community | RP Community | OOC Community | Meme Community

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

[She's never been asked to speak English, just demanded of it. She considers this for a moment.]

[It's a nice feeling, being asked for doing things. She decides she'll say what she feels like saying in English.]

Soy muy fuerte. There are worse places than this place. Very bad.

Y, muchos places... they should not exist. Es como es.

[He pauses again. Fuerte means...fire, right? No. That's fuego...Ah! Fuerte means-]

I'm sure you are. [And he doesn't sound patronizing in the least. He's come from the apocalypse. Children have to be strong or they die. He's seen it too many times.] And I know there are. I came from one. I'm not worried for me, but...when people are scared, they do stupid things and some of those things you can't take back. Once they're done, they're done.

Did you come from a bad place too, Laura?

[Laura considers that. It's a far more compelling argument against killing than Logan ever presented her. What if you kill the wrong person? She remembers hurting Gabriela by accident, waking with nightmares and claws out and open- what if she'd...]

I understand. But you are nervous. You worry you will kill people?

Sí. Very bad. Ciudad de México, under the ground.

No, like I said. I'm not worried for me, but I'm not the only person here. There's someone here who means a lot to me, and I'm worried if enough people are scared, or if the people here decide they don't trust us, that something could happen. That's why I want us all to work together.

[He pauses for a moment.]

You...lived under Mexico City, or do you mean it was a secret place?

You want to protect them? Can you fight?

Sí. La Instalación. [She tries to remember the words in English, and gives up.] Transigen company.

[There's a determination in his voice that wasn't there before, and a bit of darkness. He doesn't like it, but there's also no question.]

I can and I will if I have to.

[The...Installation? It's probably off about that, but it sounds like a title, anyway, and that means it probably wouldn't mean anything to him either way.]

I'm not sure what that is. What did they do there? You don't have to answer if you don't want to talk about it.

That is all you can do.

[In her opinion. The whole 'trying to calm people down first' is an interesting idea, though.]

They make me.

It isn't. People are stronger when they're together. Like a team. Have you ever seen a team? It's like...a car. A car needs all four of its wheels to roll, right? One tire can't move it alone. If people were like wheels, though, we wouldn't have to fight. Not everyone agrees with that, but you shouldn't assume they don't. If you meet someone and you're scared of what they might do, they probably are, too. In that situation, fighting first is stupid. The two of you may be stronger together.

[He pauses.]

They make you...what?

[It sounds like he's talking about the X-Men.] All the teams are dead.

[Simple enough. Speaking of simple-]

Me.

A...lot of teams are dead where I come from, too, but we can make new ones.

[.....]

...they...made you?

Still?

[You can almost hear the eyeroll in her voice-] Sí. This is what I said.

Well, sure. We're not the only people here, after all, and being on a team sounds sort of cool, doesn't it?

[He's also a dork, Laura. You'll have to get used to that.]

...but how do you mean they 'made' you?

What is the name of the team?

[And will there be matching costumes?]

They make me. Robaron partes de mi padre... It is with science. [And now she's getting frustrated, because she doesn't quite know how to explain it. She rambles a little, trying to say all the important words, even the ones she doesn't quite understand the importance of. But Gabriela taught her how to read, and she read them every day.] Zander Rice. Weapon X. Alkali. Transigen. Pediatric cancer research.

Well, we don't have a name yet. We're just getting started. Maybe you can help me out with that.

[Something about parts of her father, and the rest is lost on him. He's never a scientist, and it all sounds unbelievable...and also something beyond what a little girl would make up. Ultimately, he decides it doesn't really matter the specifics, at least not right now. Right now, what matters is the gist of it, and the gist even is horrible.]

...I'm very sorry, Laura. I'm sorry that happened to you.

Are there other mutantes? Are you?

[A strange answer. There's a pause, and then she says, unoffended and frank,] You did not do it.

"Mutantes"? Mutants? Uh, no. I'm...I'm not.

[But the way she asked...]

Are you?

[And look, he knows he didn't do it, alright, but that doesn't mean he doesn't sympathize with her.]

[Her voice hardens a little, not out of anger so much as... expecting an attack. Defense.]

Sí, soy un mutante. Do you hate mutants?

Hate you? Why would I hate you?

[He pauses for a moment.]

Do people hate you because you're a mutant?

[A colder voice, this one a boast.]

And fear.

[He doesn't say anything for a moment.]

They hate you because they're scared. See? When people are scared, they do stupid things, like...hate people for things they can't control. I...I know it's not the same, but I get it. I have something that makes me different, too, and some people hate me for it or think I came out wrong.

Most of the time they don't even realize how hurtful they're being, other times they know exactly what they're doing.

[And his voice is gentle when he says the next bit.]

Don't worry, Laura. I'm not going to hate you just because you're not exactly like me. Besides, it would be pretty boring if we were all the same, wouldn't it?

[Oh.]

[Something inside Laura's mind clicks in a way it never has before. Protecting a world that hates and fears you. That's why. It's noble, yes, she's always understood that, but it's more... It's a way to reach out, like Aaron says. To put yourself in front of it, that's how you lessen the hate and the fear.]

[It didn't work, but that doesn't matter. Being a hero means doing things because they are good.]

You still talk a lot. But it is not too much.

[He laughs at that.]

Thanks. I think.

[After a moment, he adds.]

Are you here alone or do you know anyone?

[Tough question, but she can get out of it-]

I know you.

You're right, and you can call me anytime you need anything.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001. Test Drive Meme.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject