modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2019-11-01 09:49 pm

november 2019. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Fifth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of November 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. outbreak.

There's a plague in the city.

What was an annoyance before, a bug that seemed to be passing, has erupted into a full-scale biomedical hazard. Onset is slow. It’s a near mystery who is infected and who isn't, who is immune and who isn't. Doors lock themselves seemingly at random to prevent people passing through. Is that person with you one of the sick? How do you know? Would they tell you if they were?

The city will do its best to isolate the ill, once again locking them out of communal areas and trying to force them down toward the MedBay for quarantine. All bots will be temporarily shifted to plague protocols, rounding up and caring for the ill as best they can. (Lucky you, you get your cough syrup with a mixer courtesy of the barbot.) But they might not always get things right, and what healthy person wants to be locked away in a ward full of the violently ill? How do the bots even know which is which?

The ill will slowly find themselves dizzy, lightheaded, with chills and fever. They may cough hard enough to spit blood from irritated throats, or sneeze so long and hard they give themselves bloody noses. The symptoms can vary wildly depending on body chemistry, species, and dozens of other factors, making it difficult to pin down a specific set that indicates a person is infected. All bodily fluids are dangerously infectious. Maybe you want to keep your distance from your friends if you start to feel the onset, to keep them safe. But you also want to keep your freedom, not get trapped in a room full of people who seem to be dying. And anyone who was exposed to the first outbreak will find themselves either completely immune to this new one through early exposure...or far more susceptible, their immune systems doing almost nothing to protect them, with extreme symptom sets that hit them much harder than the average infected.

And through all of this, that voice that cheerfully chirped out helpful hints during the item exchange, that giggled and sang songs in the crashed spaceship in the wasteland can be heard again - but this time it's different. This time, there's very little cheer left, and though the commentary is still sing-song, it's much harsher, more monotone and without much energy. 'Go on, hurry up to the MedBay. No breaking quarantine!' it says, or to those moving through the city with friends, 'You must not like those people much, are you sure you want to get them sick?' In the depths of the worst of it, in the third week of the month, people may start hearing more of those 'helpful' suggestions - 'Maybe it would be better if we just left them out in the wastelands, you know? For the greater good and all...'

Mod Note: An NPC post will be going up next weekend on [community profile] redshiftrp to supplement this prompt. Keep an eye out!

b. gone to shit.

With 90% of the city's bots repurposed to serve the ill (the matchmaking bot being the notable exception), things are starting to go downhill fast elsewhere. Didn’t realize how much work the bots were actually doing? You can't avoid knowing now.

Restaurants, slowly coming back online after the increased activity in the agricultural areas, are promptly shut down again with things starting to go bad in the fridges. The VR rooms have no attendants to help with glitches. The maintenance bots are prowling the halls looking for ill people to assist to the MedBay. The spa bots are all down in the lower levels helping keep people comfortable while they convalesce, leaving the spas to run themselves. Sometimes to overflowing. It's definitely going to be an adventure discovering what else the bots were doing to keep things running smoothly.

There's no bots manning the bar (make your own drinks while you can), but this also means there are no bots cleaning up the messes people leave behind in the bar either. The detritus of people living their lives starts to pile up - which means if you don’t want garbage filling up the most used common rooms, you're going to have to apply some good old elbow grease. Exactly what you wanted to do while everyone is violently ill, right?


c. dance of the moonlight jellies.

In spite of everything going on elsewhere in the colony, something magical is happening in the lakes and ponds of the park. Maybe your healthy or recovering character stumbles across it on their own. Maybe they see the glow from a higher levels and are drawn down to it. Maybe a persistent and super helpful voice, the same voice from the item exchange, the same voice that suggested throwing the sick out into the wasteland, suggests that you should go down and look at what's happening there.

However you ended up in the park, the place is filled with a silvery glow that emanates from the ponds, rivers, and lake. Fish have come up from the bottom, from where they were buried under the sand. They look almost like East Asian dragons, for those familiar with Earth. They're long, muscular, with two sets of fins trailing in the water like legs. Their heads are delicate, beautiful things that trail whiskers in the water along beside them.

And they're dancing.

In loops and whirls, over and under each other, diving deep and then rising up again to create patterns of light and shadow. Anyone who watches for more than a minute can start to feel relief moving through them, calm, the sense that things will be okay. Watching the dance is almost like meditation. Probably, for some, a much-needed break.

hersay: (drank)

[personal profile] hersay 2019-11-30 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
[ allison registers julie's pause. she doesn't react this time. that's typical, though -- that pause is a little suspicious, and she doesn't want to let julie know that she thinks that something's up. better for allison to investigate it away from prying eyes or ears. she'll have to ask klaus about it later.

then julie says that she and klaus are really close, and allison gives a diplomatic smile. interesting. ]


I'm happy to hear Klaus has made a good friend.

[ gf...good friend? or something else? hmm?? ]

Did you meet here? Or in that other world?
redwinekindofgirl: (071)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-12-06 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[Good friend. Yes. That's exactly what it is.

Ehem.
]

Oh, Hadriel? Yeah, we met there.

[And she'll leave out the details of their meeting, thank you very much. There's no meet-cute quite like offering a spliff and then getting into bed with a guy you've known for half an hour.]

And, I dunno... we just hit it off. Shitty experiences draw people together, I guess.
hersay: (Default)

[personal profile] hersay 2019-12-09 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ shitty experiences? that's concerning. allison knows about most of klaus', but not any of julie's. if hers are bad enough to bond with klaus over though, then they must be pretty bad. allison frowns, hoping julie is doing okay now, at least, and that her shitty experiences also didn't involve abusive families or being haunted by the dead. or both ]

They have the tendency to do that. It's nice to talk to people who have been through it. Much less pretending.

[ allison shrugs at her own comment. she knows all about pretending. ]
redwinekindofgirl: (052)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-12-15 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. Tell me about it.

[And she's sure that's why they clicked so well, right from the beginning. There's a difference in years, but they align so well in terms of experience and the things that their lives have driven them to do.

Julie huffs out a sigh, coughs lightly, and lets her attention fall to the shimmering lights under the surface of the water again.
]

He never mentioned you, uh. Couldn't talk.
hersay: (take me seriously)

[personal profile] hersay 2020-01-04 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[ allison examines julie briefly, not unlike she's sizing the younger woman up. there's so much that's being left unsaid here, but allison knows she'll learn the important stuff soon enough. ]

It's recent.

[ if she were speaking, that response would be terse, but allison's stern facial expression will have to do. her injury is private, more of a family matter than anything else, a cut too deep to share with strangers. so she lies: ]

It's not a big deal.
redwinekindofgirl: (Default)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-01-12 04:53 pm (UTC)(link)
... Sure.

[And a nod, because she doesn't know Allison and Klaus hadn't talked about her even half as much as he'd talked about Ben. Does she believe that it isn't a big deal? No, not for a damn second, but not everyone is as free with their horrifying injury stories as Julie can be.]

What do you think of the place? Anchor, I mean.

[She makes a vague, all-around gesture with one hand.]

Most people freak out when they get here, or start trying to make threats like anyone really gives a shit. You look pretty chill.