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.

sleepyhollowed: (um....)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-02 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Kieran thinks about some kind of retort.]

[He thinks really long and hard about it...]

[...but he can't think of one.]


Yeah, yer right.

But that ain't a bad thing!
itsnotaonesie: (this is fiiiine)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-02 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
[FAIR ENOUGH]

Nah, I mean, honestly I'm mostly okay with it. I think if I was just a regular guy I wouldn't be able to keep up with nearly as much as I do now.
sleepyhollowed: (woah wait)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-04 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
That just brings us back to the whole yer supposed to be a kid doin' kid things... uh... thing. If you were a regular guy, you wouldn't have to worry about takin' care of everythin'.
itsnotaonesie: (sure this might as well happen)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-04 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
I kinda wish I was sometimes, but then I feel selfish and like-- like a huge jerk for feeling that way. I like helping people, don't get me wrong, but... I dunno, it gets exhausting sometimes.
sleepyhollowed: (oh dang gotta give actual advice now?)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-06 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
Yer allowed to wanna take a break if yer feelin' exhausted of all things. Doesn't make you a bad person or nothin'.

But I betcha heard that plenty already.
itsnotaonesie: (80)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-08 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
I've heard it a lot, yeah. Guess I'm just having a hard time letting it sink in, but I can't really explain why.
sleepyhollowed: (legend says he's STILL drinking coffee)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-08 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I hear ya. It's hard to put feelin's like that into words when they're all bottled up in ya.

[Cowboys aren't the best at talking through their emotions. Who would've thought.]

But, uh, I mean, I'm here to listen if you wanna try just, I dunno, sayin' stuff? Until the right thing comes out, I guess?
itsnotaonesie: (127)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-09 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
[Peter nods all YEAH BUDDY it sure is a pain in the dick]

I mean, that's not a bad strategy. I'm just not really sure where I wanna start. I mean, I guess I've already started, but now it's just turning into me running my mouth again.

[He is Bad at this]
sleepyhollowed: (kind of adorable sometimes)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-16 04:52 am (UTC)(link)
[He sure is... but he's is good at rambling!]

Then just keep lettin' yer mouth run.

[D U H]
itsnotaonesie: (111)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-17 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well now he's getting self conscious of his rambling how about THEM APPLES]

I dunno, man. Like sometimes I wish I could just let myself be a kid, but at the same time I don't like being thought of as a kid because I want people to know that I really can handle all this stuff. But then I turn around and forget to eat for three days because I'm trying to fix something that makes everyone else's lives better and like, that's not responsible. Maybe I should. Set meal alarms or. Something. I dunno.
sleepyhollowed: (just a little bit of hope can't hurt)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-21 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
[LESS APPLES MORE TALK]

[Also Kieran has no idea how you would set an alarm for meals, but let's put that aside for now and focus on the bigger picture.]


You could, but, uh, it might make more sense fer you to get someone to help you out with the things that need to get done. You can't be the only feller who knows how to fix these things. You got plenty of smart folks around here who'll help you out if you teach 'em, at least with the smaller stuff.

Just havin' one person takin' care of a bunch of stuff ain't going to be good fer any of us in the long run. I mean... look at what happened with me. If I were the only person workin' on the ranch, we'd all be in some serious trouble. But 'cause me and Pratt and Reynir and a bunch of other folks are workin' as a team, stuff's still gettin' done.

[At least, he's pretty sure it is.]

There ain't no shame in workin' with some extra hands, and you'll get to eat every once in a while.
itsnotaonesie: movieconnoisseur (lemmie stop you right there)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-26 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[Man we gotta learn this feller how to technology better.]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I've showed people how to do some stuff, and Qubit's been able to take a huge load off my shoulders since he got here, but it still feels like things just keep popping up. I think I just need to get better at delegating tasks or something.

[That is absolutely what he needs to get better at. That and remembering to freakin' EAT FOOD AND NAP.]
sleepyhollowed: (EXCUSE ME SIR???)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-26 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kieran is quiet for a moment.]

[Then, he reaches out right about where he's pretty sure Peter's shoulder is. Once he finds it, he pats it once... twice... and then when he's fully oriented, lifts up his hand so he can gently whap Peter right on the side of his head.]


It ain't up to you to delegate or nothin'! Stop it! Ask someone else to do it!
itsnotaonesie: (105)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-28 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
[It doesn't hurt, but wow. Peter can't believe you've done this, Kieran.]

W-why? Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing, passing the work load around?
sleepyhollowed: (yeah sure whatever u say)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-28 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
If you do it yerself, yer just gonna wind up givin' yerself most of the work.

If you wanna delegate somethin', ask someone to delegate fer you.
itsnotaonesie: (eating spiders???)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-29 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
[WOW CALLED OUT.]

I-- okay, I'll try.

[But he still sounds totally huffy about it!!!]
sleepyhollowed: (just a little bit of hope can't hurt)

[personal profile] sleepyhollowed 2019-12-30 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!!!]

G-Good!

[Holy shit he's not used to being assertive or listened to, this is so surreal.]

And if you need any extra help, I'm here to give it.
itsnotaonesie: movieconnoisseur (face)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-01 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
[I know but you don't gotta say it!!!!!

Also Peter is just too tired to argue, that's all!!!! And also he knows he's wrong, he's just being a huffy teenager. Except now he's all out of huff, so he just sighs and chills the fuck out.]


Thanks, man. Really, I appreciate it.