recolle | (no subject)

EVENT

Inverted
The city of Recollé...this feels familiar, doesn't it? Everything about your precious city seems to be calm albeit weird, but that's normal for these parts. Is this just how life is now? Or should you be preparing for something else...?

I.

Hopping through dreams seems to be old hat by now. Have any of you experienced a good night sleep this last month? It seems as though it's inevitable to avoid falling into someone else's dreams, but at least the waking hours are safe...

...until the 5th of August. Though you may be awake and able to carry out your every day lives, Retrospec users will soon find that their surroundings will warp around them to reflect dreams they've been experiencing or memories of places they're familiar with. Hallucinations of these places will be solid enough to encompass you and those around you. People from your dreams and memories will exist and actively encourage you to chase after them, digging deeper to understand who you truly are.

Some of you may find it a step further and discover yourself stuck in someone else's memories swapped out for your own, their hallucinations enclosing you and leaving you trapped in a place unfamiliar.

The entire city may disappear right before your eyes as you roam the new landscape of these memories. Objects can be taken from the scene of the dream and pulled back into reality as a catalyst to break the hallucination. Monsters from the scene can be slain or a user can be coerced into forcing themselves to break the illusion themselves by rejecting what they're seeing. The possibilities are endless and mostly harmless.

After all, several of you have experienced this before, haven't you? While the fog from last October isn't infiltrating the city, your hallucinations are as they spread far and wide, even going so far as to notify NPCs of certain changes around them.

Good luck explaining that one.

II.

Dreamshares and hallucinations are quite cumbersome, aren't they? Manageable though they may be, they're nothing but a mild annoyance at this point and it may feel as though you're making some progress in avoiding them.

However, for several users, falling asleep and waking up may have some rather drastic results.

Upon awakening, you may find yourself somewhere you aren't familiar. You might be in someone else's bed, or perhaps you're in an entirely different district than you fell asleep in. Something feels off about yourself and you'll wake up with a slight headache and dizzying sensation. It will pass within the hour, at least.

It's only when you start to look closer that you realize something is incredibly wrong. These hands don't belong to you, nor do these clothes or these walls. Your mind is the same and you remember everything as it should be, but your body belongs to another. You may recognize the person whose body you now inhabit, or perhaps you're incredibly unlucky and you've been swapped with a stranger.

Get out there and find your match, Retrospecters. Swapping back won't be as simple as you may hope. It seems that the ability to swap back to normal is unique to every set of citizens and can range from talking things out, bodily colliding with one another, falling asleep and hoping it fixes itself or other circumstances.

The longer you find yourself in the body of someone else, however, the more you'll find yourself taking on their mannerisms or obtaining their regained memories for yourself. You may even start to believe you are that person now. Careful not to lose yourselves.

III.
Never fear! Despite the bodyswapping that seems to be going on, Retrospec will still recognize users as themselves. Posting to the network will still attach the correct name to the correct users even if they're wearing someone else's face. The trouble, it seems, is that Retrospec itself is starting to fall apart.

Some posts may appear twice due to errors in accepting new posts. Messages will be sent to people you don't mean to send them to, and in some cases your entire name field may be changed to a name you don't recognize. Messages will appear scrambled on occasion, and most importantly while you're posting you may receive strange messages as well.

Small, descriptive blurbs about yourself will appear in your mailbox detailing information about yourself, places you've gone, items you've received and notations about unique properties and abilities you may have. Pictures of you from your current location will be mailed to yourself, and one of two words will appear.

For those who have been on the app for over a year, they will receive: Alpha.
Anyone who has been on the app for less than a year will receive: Beta.

What does that mean? That's a great question. Perhaps you should ask one another.

IV.
So really, you might come to realize that a good solution to escape all of this ridiculousness is to hightail it out of the city and head for one of the four surrounding regions. Nobody needs to stay in Recollé. It's summer vacation! School doesn't start until September and if things don't improve in the city it might be easier to process what's happening outside.

For those who venture to those regions though they'll notice a distinct difference in them from their usual presence. Magatus is still covered in sand instead of snow, and for anyone who enters Bosuma they'll notice that the flowers are beginning to blacken and wither. The water levels around Pesgare are below average as fish begin to struggle to find new places to live, and the temperature in Respatrum has dropped to an unusually chilly 80 degrees fahrenheit.

While natives of Magatus don't seem to be alarmed, the other three regions will be distressed and uncertain of how to change what's happening around them. They will mention that there have been signs of this coming for some time now but that it's unlike anything that's normal for the region.

More importantly, however, they'll pause when they look at you and they'll be hesitant to continue. It seems they'll be more distracted by bright blue Retrospec symbol tattooed on the side of your neck, glowing even through any fabrics you may be wearing. The symbol will disappear and fade once users return to Recollé, but should they venture out again the mark will return with a vengeance.

BONUS.
On the evening of the 5th, every single user will receive an unmarked, unlabeled package addressed to them. Should they choose to open this package they will find several puzzle pieces in monochromatic colors.

As users begin to put together the puzzle, they'll notice that some pieces are missing. These pieces can be found scattered around the city in locations they usually frequent, but the full picture remains blurred no matter how much of the puzzle they complete. It's only when you find the last puzzle piece and slip it into place that the picture comes into focus.

The colors are muted but the image is clear. A backside view of yourself is clearly outlined in the light from the door, but there's a message printed at the bottom of each puzzle in the same Retrospec blue.

"Turn him to any cause of policy, the Gordian Knot of it he will unloose, familiar as his garter."

Welcome to

recolle's August event!

As notated, this is the first event log! The effects of this log will only go until the night of 8/16. After this time, a new log for dream dives and further information and other things in the month will go up on 8/17!

Please note: dream dives have not started yet! They will not be icly in effect until 8/17.

For Prompt I, any items taken from the hallucinations should be small-scale items if they are canon-based. If they're AU-based, please keep them at a reasonable size. Characters should be able to carry items themselves in order to retrieve them from the dream.

As a reminder, if you are planning to keep changes to your AU at the end of this month, please leave us a comment here!

Finally, any questions you have regarding this event may be directed to the mod comment here. Be sure to review the mods' question thread on the plotting post for important information as well!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think it's pretty cool. This girl other-me knew didn't have any powers at all, but she was this super tech genius. She was our school's IT girl when she was just the same age as the students! And a couple things happened, so then she used these inventions she came up with to fight crime with us and Principal Waller accepted her into Super Hero High. She even used the name I came up with for her. So even if you didn't have any powers, I bet you still could've fought, and that soul energy thing sounds kinda interesting.

[ there was a lot in there, but Jen listened intently. she wanted to know more about Kara and her sister both. this was a whole new side to their world - shared or otherwise - and it was nice to hear these things at a time like this. it gave her something to focus on besides all the worrying. ]

Huh. You actually had a school for super heroes? That's super wild! I'm glad your friend was able to find a way to fit in.

Yeah! I think we had a couple different supers with no actual powers. So even if you didn't have really impressive ones, I bet you could still fight whatever we're supposed to fight, and that soul aura thing sounds really cool.

Heh. Thanks. I've... never had to fight before, outside of dreams and memories. [ a smirk. ] Football is the closest to that and even then no one's fighting for their lives.

But I feel safer knowing people like you and Kara are around if stuff hits the fan in the real world.
[ for varying degrees of "real". ]

I don't know, I'm not all that great. But, uh, thanks. Gonna do my best, at least. Memories are what most of us have to go on.

Well, I've only known you for what... five minutes? But from that I can already tell you're strong, and your heart is in the right place. That counts for a lot in my eyes.

[She gives a nervous laugh.] Thanks. It's just 'cause I have everyone else around me. I used to be really freaked out by all this power stuff.

Oh yeah? Just your own, or other people's, too?

I mean, if someone was a supervillain in a past life and decided to go do that again, that would be kind of a problem too.

Yeah... [ that's one frightening possibility Jen has come face-to-face with. ] Even if they found that out, I'd like to think no one here is cruel enough to just take that idea and run with it. We're all in this boat together, right? Rocking it makes zero sense.

I hope so. I mean, things are pretty scary as it is.

They can be. I think we'll all pull through. I mean, hey, people worked together to bring the city back when it was nearly erased. That's a pretty big achievement!

[ she can't let herself feel fearful in the face of that kind of cooperation. ]

Yeah, no kidding, right? That was a mess. We couldn't find anything! I mean, we ended up turning a bunch of roads brown and stuff, but.

Ahah.. brown is close enough, right?

Probably better than the purple trees out in the park.

[ Jen snickered. ] I had a yellow brush. Anything I did with it felt like overdoing it. Except school buses. I'm pretty proud of those.