spherememing | 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

w e l c o m e

[ Being kidnapped and brought to an underwater city isn't all that shocking to Rogue. Perhaps it's because of the turn her life has taken in the last decade, with the war and her captivity. Perhaps she's simply too numb already to register anything like shock or panic, because all she feels is a sense of resignation and acceptance for her present circumstances. She's here in this strange place at the bottom of the ocean for an indeterminate amount of time... and then she'll return home to die. Or be reset, whichever happens to be the case. Either way, she won't remember any of this, and it's easier to be numb than to think about what that means.

But even in this state, she appreciates the people around her (alive and well) and the food on the table (fresh and appetizing). Do any of her fellow new arrivals understand just how lucky they are to be here instead of somewhere like the world she'd been pulled from? She has to hope that the answer is no, that this is the worst place they've ever been, because everyone here deserves the kind of life she'd never had. A better life.

Choosing a few items from the table, she piles small portions on a plate before moving back from the crowd. Despite the long green sleeves and black gloves that cover her, she still worries about something happening — it only takes one wrong move to cause an accident that she might not be able to pull away from.

Stepping carefully through the crowd, her elbow grazes someone's side as she moves past them, eliciting an immediate apology in a smooth southern drawl. ] I'm so sorry, sugar, I didn't mean to bump into you like that.

h a r v e s t

[ While Rogue would like nothing more than to be helping bring in the harvest with so many of the others, after just a few minutes of work she comes to the unfortunate conclusion that she simply doesn't have the strength for it right now. After years of captivity, her stamina isn't what it used to be, so she instead decides to help with passing out lunch and wine to those who have spent their time gathering the crops. ]

Thanks so much for all your hard work today, sugar. [ It's said with a friendly smile as she holds out a plate of food with a gloved hand. ] Everyone really appreciates it.

w i l d c a r d

[ In the mood for something else? Give me your best shot, or hit me up at taintedcrimson and we'll get something set up. ]

Edited 2018-12-03 09:13 (UTC)

[ Wanda offers her a small smile and shakes her head slightly. ] It's okay. I barely noticed. [ Which was true. ] You okay?

I'm just fine. [ As fine as she can be these days, anyway. Which isn't really fine at all, but she's not going to admit that to anyone. ] Are you another new arrival?

[ She nods. ] Yeah, sure am. Wanda Maximoff, hi.

[Manual labor has always given Aaron a sense of purpose and completion, and coming from a world that's ended, where a 12 foot wall is all that separates them from the herds of undead, where harvesting and community world were how you survived, this all came as second nature. Still, picking fruit all day was tiring, even to a guy used to such things, and he gladly takes the sandwich Rogue offers him when he takes his break. She looked pale, though, somehow wan, and he frowned in concern as the food was passed.]

We're all in this together, but...are you feeling alright?

[ It wasn't the first time someone had asked her that today, and she had to wonder what was giving her away. She was very much not alright, emotionally or physically, but she certainly didn't want anyone else knowing that. Her entire life had been spent hiding her troubles and she saw no reason to change that here. So she strengthened her smile and gave a shake of her head. ]

I'm fine, sugar, but thank you for asking. It's just been kind of a long day, you know?

You look like you could use a rest yourself.

[He takes the sandwich she offered and opened the wrapper, taking one of the halves and holding it out her, smiling.]

I'll cover for you.

[Alex is used to the crowd of a city, honestly. Seattle's pretty big and Alex lives and works in the center of it. The adjustment for her comes in the form of how there are definitely far less people here than there had been back home. Which was why she was surprised when the person had bumped her. There was no offense in the returned grin, indeed Alex felt like she was someplace closer to home than this city below the sea was.

Her voice was equally warm as her smile, and she just nodded.]

Don't worry about it, I mean it happens, right? Are you new here too?

[ Normally, Bean can navigate through crowds easily, being small enough to slip underfoot, around legs out of people's line of sight. Most people don't even notice someone so small. He's distracted, carefully standing near the entrance to what he's heard tell is the Black Market, watching to pick up on what the passcode might be to gain entrance, when someone-- someone taller, an adult-- bumps into him.

He barely spares her a glance. ]

It's alright. You didn't see me.

[ He's used to not being seen. ]

001. Test Drive Meme.

rogue | x-men: days of future past

@ welcome

no subject

no subject

@ harvest

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no subject

Welcome

welcome