(no subject)

[recollecters]

EVENT

UNFINISHED. "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time" - Thomas Merton Members of the Retrospec app are used to this by now. Those of you who have been around long enough know that the third is the mystery day that something inevitably goes wrong. Perhaps changes happen around you such as shrinking twelve sizes too small, or maybe time is spent playing a rousing game of bingo for a bored-with-his-job R&D employee. But on the third somewhere around midnight, every user will receive a mass message in their inbox from Zee Carlisle, a man many have heard of by now but that some may not be as familiar with. The layers have collapsed. Tech's overtime just went into double-overtime. We still don't know enough about the layers. Follow the coordinates, this should help speed things up while we figure it out. Attached to the message are different coordinates around the city of Recollé. Choosing to follow the coordinates may help, but the first step is always the hardest... THE BEGINNING ...as you step outside, the world around you seems to fade entirely. A blank white canvas waits before you and the building you've exited disappears from sight. Buildings, landmarks, flora and fauna are all invisible to the naked eye and the white space seems endless. It's hard to tell if it's day or night seeing how the sun is completely blanked out, but it's warm and bright nevertheless. Following the coordinates provided may lead you to a variety of places. With the map on your phone guiding you, you'll find yourself supposedly inside department stores, in the middle of a park, or worst case in the middle of the ocean. As you approach your coordinates, a light draws your eye downward to the item that awaits you: a large paintbrush dripping in a specific color. At first it probably isn't obvious what paintbrushes are supposed to do. As the paint drips off of the brush and onto the ground, the color disappears and spreads as black across the surface. Experimenting with the paintbrushes, you may find that the more paint you spread, the more the world will reveal itself. THE NPCS With the layers collapsed, NPCs will notice that the world is a white expanse and lacking definition. While they won't have their own paintbrushes, it's hard to ignore the absolute lack of boundaries and shapes. Try as they might, they will attempt to keep living their normal lives with school and work but they may need some guidance to prevent them from crashing into the sides of the buildings or falling into the streets. That's not the only thing NPCs will notice. With the removal of the layers, they will also be more likely to commentate on your appearance, those new abilities you have, or that creature that absolutely isn't from planet Earth. They'll ask questions, nosy and inquiring and some of them may even be afraid of what they see. Hopefully you have a good cover story ready. THE NETWORK Despite the fact that everything else has disappeared, all items on your person and your phones remain in tact. Clothing worn retains its color and the interiors of your homes are solid until you walk outside. Phones appear in full technicolor and the network is functional as usual. However, every time you post or comment to someone your name will appear in the same color as your paintbrush. Text glitches may appear in messages, texts misfiring to people who share similar colors to your own or messages being blanked out by black bars. While the network is more stable than most things, it never hurts to double-check. THE COLORS Teamwork is dreamwork and the people at Retrospec seem to know that better than anyone. While the Retrospec team is busy working together to stabilize the collapse, members of the Retrospec network will find that working together can help speed up the process. Individually painting the area will highlight all items in black, but pairing up will allow for a bit of color to attach to the world again. Blending the brushes together will generate new, bright colors that will stick! Two reds can paint an object red while a red and a blue can change an object to purple. The problem, however, is that paint can be painted over. While a bush may appear green, who's stopping someone from painting it orange instead? Be a rebel and change things up! Colors will appear more vibrant if a group works together well. The paint will be thick and rich enough that one coat should cover everything. On the other hand, if a group has conflict among themselves or even their own inner turmoil the paint will be watery and pale. The new colors will appear for a brief moment but soon they will fade into a murky brown with the consistency of mud. Gross. THE CITY Now that the seed has been planted, you may find the task to be easy. Load up with buckets of paint (once you locate them, that is), pick a place on the map and go to town! Paintbrushes can be used to mix new colors, drain into objects such as water balloons, supersoakers and more to allow for maximum coverage of the city. Some of you may notice that the color is the same as your stone hearts from February, and some of you may just think the color's nice. Your favorite, perhaps. As you work with the brushes to rebuild the layers, you'll find that there are some new features as well that stand out among the rest. -A new building in Tisse will reveal itself and the sign for The Three Broomsticks will stand out proudly, ready to serve a variety of treats from their menu. -Over in Apprassage, a library known as the National Library now sits between the public library and the college library. This library contains every book published in Japan and comes with a very nice courtyard, a lounge area, an infirmary, several offices, a dining hall, a bar, and many unoccupied dorm rooms. -Originally confined to the woods, Echo Flowers will sprout up around public gardens, parks and more. Though hard to recognize without their eerie blue color, they will repeat everything they hear in a loud, booming voice. -Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! With the painting project in progress, cages at the Recollé zoo aren't quite as tight as usual and the animals are running wild. Are you going to be the prey or the hunter? It might be best to try and wrangle them back toward the zoo where they belong. -Roads will need to be restructured as well and that includes the roads to the other regions! While there are ways to travel on your own (if you happen to know where you're going), the lack of landmarks makes travel a bit difficult this month. As the roads and road signs are painted, golden hoof marks from horses will appear along the ground. The sound of horse-drawn carriages will roam through the city at night, but no horses will be visible to the naked eye. -Should you manage to get that far to one of the other regions, you'll find that the collapse of the layers is a world-wide problem. The regions are blank and white, but without Retrospec users everything will remain flat. -Finally, as you paint the town another sound you may hear is the sound of sweeping. Behind you, small creatures will be following with paint thinner in their bristles, working to clean up the area and make everything beautiful again. On the other hand, they might erase all of your hard work if you aren't carefully paying attention. It's up to you to make the world your own, Retrospecters. What will you do today? Welcome to recolle's May log! The information above provides loose guidelines of things occurring this month, so please feel free to make your own prompts based on these. You are also free to create your own logs and inbox threads. Characters who travel to one of the four regions this month (Pesgare, Respatrum, Bosuma, Magatus) will find that they will have to paint the area to explore anywhere! However, there are no strange effects in these regions like there have been in the last few months. As a reminder, you may qualify for an additional freebie this month by threading out effects of this event with at least one person you have not threaded with before! This thread must be at least five consecutive comments from you. Any questions you have regarding this event may be directed to the mod comment here.