recollecters: (Default)
Recollé Mods ([personal profile] recollecters) wrote in [community profile] recolle2019-02-05 05:06 pm
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EVENT
Re:Configure
Prologue.
It's on February 5th that every single Retrospec users receives a message from the liaison known as Zee Carlisle. Several of you have visited and expressed concerns already, but none of that mattered in the grande scheme of what needs to be said.

The thing about the city and the layers below is that the metaphysical can easily become the physical with the power you all possess. It's just a "handy" little trick that comes with intermingling soul essence. Thanks to my field agent, we've received some data that'll help advance our research to help track Vanderweele, stabilize the layers and figure out our next step.

The next step, of course, is going beyond.

You're not ready though. I know that, you're not, but I think I've figured out some workarounds. Just be careful and try to control yourselves. You'll need to embrace who you are and take the next step to protect yourselves.

It's not about finding keys anymore. It's about becoming them, generating the doors yourself and getting ready for things out there that're bound to be bad.

Keep balance in mind. And don't try to hide from what's happening. I'm not sure how this is going to manifest but this is all still you.


Well. That's not ominous, is it?
I.
Not long after the announcement, anyone looking in the sky will soon notice something strange happening. While the moon hangs peacefully in the night sky, the second moon that had appeared some months ago begins moving on its own, slowly beginning to eclipse the regular moon. As the two of them overlap one another, a soft blue light emits over the whole city and in your head you'll hear a faint animalistic cry. Some of you may hear the roar of a tiger while others hear the whinny of a horse and others hear the shrieking of a monkey. These sounds only last for a moment…and then there's silence. The moons split apart again and everything seems to go on as normal.

The next day on the morning of the sixth, you wake up and find yourself feeling incredibly chipper and rejuvenated, ready to take on the world and all things in it. Nothing can bring you down today and even those who are usually fussy or angry will find it hard to stay that way for long. Positivity is key here, and as you go about your day you'll find your thoughts are often drawn to capitalizing on positive qualities that you may not even know you have.

This doesn't always mean it's a good thing, however. Just because a trait is positive doesn't mean that it's only meant to do good. Being overzealous and foolhardy can cause a clash and several of you may find yourselves being too caught up in your own traits to notice they'll imbalance the people around you. A person who finds themselves in strong possession of being charming may wind up over-promising several things to several people in order to win favor. Someone who's suddenly lucky at love will have to fend off admirers that come from all sorts of directions. Goal-oriented minds will find that they're creating several to-do lists and pushing themselves too hard to finish all of the tasks at hand. Each trait manifests itself differently for each person, but it's the year you were born that seems to determine which set of traits are being amplified. It's a pattern that will take time to recognize, but talking to one another may help bring this comparison to light.

In addition to the consequences of your actions, the traits you exude will be capable of giving themselves a physical existence in the form of small, ordinary objects. Creation of these objects is for the most part involuntary and users will not always know how these will manifest. Do be careful, however. An overabundance of each trait may get you in trouble and the objects themselves will backfire in ways you may not expect. Those who are popular can wind up generating several friendship bracelets that physically bind them to too many people. Those whose sense of humor has been amplified could bring a laugh-track to life, a small object that cannot be paused and will chuckle at everything that's said no matter how serious it is. It's possible to resist giving in to these traits and avoid generating these objects, but the longer you resist the harder it will be to concentrate on anything else until the creation is expelled. You'll find your resolve weakening and compelled to give in as the days march on, but the longer you wait the more likely the objects will appear unstable. Perhaps it's best to continually create instead. You never know what you might get.

II.
When the night falls, things change and suddenly everything you may have understood about what's happening doesn't make much sense at all. As the sun sinks below the horizon and the two moons rise again, something in your personality shifts and all of your positive feelings fade away. These emotions are soon replaced by something darker and more negative, altering thoughts and ideas to the point that you may feel like you're a completely different person. Moodswings may run rampant, and insecurities will be heightened the longer the night draws on. Some of you may find greed threatening to overwhelm you, or impatience clouding your judgment and causing reckless decisions to be made. While these may not be traits you possess normally, it all comes back to when you were born and what traits the stars seem to have determined to be yours.

While you can still display independent thought and will when you possess your positive traits in the daylight, the amplification of your more negative qualities begin to overshadow all else. Giving in to your darker side is much easier than fighting it off and indulging in these traits never hurt anyone…except for perhaps yourself. While positive manifestation creates objects in abundance to the point of annoyance, negative manifestation seems to generate the metaphysical into a physical being that causes harm. The creation of elements bound to your negative side allows these objects to slowly drain away your energy, zapping the goodness out of you and leaving you as a pale, empty shell. This can be remedied by finding someone who's managed to hold onto some form of positivity, or even going to a place with plenty of lighting to drive back the shadows. Exposing yourself to either of these will help you recognize what traits have possessed you this time.

But what about your "normal" personality? Where has it gone? It's still there buried deep beneath the surface but it's much harder to reach when your less-than-stellar qualities are amped up to the point of consuming you. You may need to find people to remind you of who you once were and allow them to convince you to try and focus on your positive sides again. An imbalance is the likely outcome without someone to check on you. Being alone isn't really an option now, but can you convince others to stay? That's something only you can answer.

Additionally, you'll have to do something about the object you've brought forth in the dark hours. Leaving objects out in the open without binding them to some form of light will allow the creations to begin reaching out and draining anyone nearby. Of course, you can try to destroy these objects as well...but you may wish to remember that time is a factor here.
III.
There are two moments in each day in which your personalities will come into alignment and you'll have perfect clarity of the situation and who you are. During the hour of sunrise and the hour of sunset, an eclipse-like effect appears in the sky and allows users to grapple with both sets of traits. At the end of the day, you're still you, but these hours will give you the advantage to learn how to cope with veering too far in either direction and learn the sense of balance.

Working together, users will be able to generate items from both positive and negative traits during these hours. They must then learn how to fuse them together and create a balanced concept. Where there's light there must be darkness and while the answer may not be obvious at first, the overlayering of the sun and the moon(s) serves as a hint that perhaps the combination is the key you seek. Strangely, users are able to stare straight at this eclipse without worrying about damage to their eyes. Perhaps it's not as real as you think.

As objects come into being, willed into existence by embracing your positive and negative traits in performing some sort of action or skill encompassing the idea, they will begin to multiply and it will soon be up to users to find what items may match with someone else's items. An item created from love may go well with something created by indulgence. An item manifested from insecurity may react just as well with an item drawn from kindness. Should a user try to form an item created from two positive traits, it will explode into a shower of fireworks that rise up and spark above the city. For those who attempt to shove two negative traits together, a large smoke bomb will go off instead and the items will be destroyed, forcing users to start all over again.

Should users finally get it right and create an acceptable object, something unusual occurs. The object begins to glow and duplicates itself, hovering in front of both creators before they soon dissolve into black and white sparks that wash over you and add a thin, iridescent sheen to your skin. Your phone will beep loudly, announcing that a new feature has been unlocked on your Retrospec app and drawing your attention to a brand new map and a QR code to be scanned. The map will lead to a randomized location somewhere in the city of Recollé, and should a user choose to follow it they will come face to face with another silver door, QR scanner firmly affixed in the center.

Try all you'd like, citizens. These doors will not budge just yet, but the QR code will be accepted. A new message will appear once you've been scanned.

Make some preparations. The doors will open on the 17th and a group will be led down to undo what's been done. You in?

…time to make some decisions, it seems. What will your choose? At least there's a moment's reprieve to decide.
IV.
For the most part, this is actually fairly tame in comparison to usual Retrospec nonsense. It seems as though this storm can be weathered together and as users seek out one another it's easier to combat these effects with minimal damage. Create objects to manifest doors? That seems fairly simple and though the mysterious preparation message may leave some of you uneasy, it's the right direction to go.

Naturally, of course, there's someone who isn't too happy that light and darkness are becoming balanced and in sync.

On the morning of the fourteenth, positive traits are amplified as usual during the sunlight hours. It's a beautiful Valentine's Day in the city of Recollé. Sweet coffees are on special at both Expressive and A Good Bean. Romantic comedy marathons are queued to air all day long at Flix. Sweet Stems has a discount on flowers by the dozen, and oh look, there are black wispy hearts floating right past you through the air.

Wait, what?

Perhaps you're an overly curious type who will follow the hearts, or you may just be unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. These hearts are slow to move, floating aimlessly until they spot a target upon which they zip forward straight into your own heart. A tattoo manifests somewhere on your person, heart-shaped and black, and you feel an icy chill run through your veins as all kindness, love, and "goodness" are washed away to be replaced by the traits you've combatted in the evenings. Overwhelmed by the effects of the heart, the power within you begins to churn and give life and form to your personal darkness. A musician will be able to play notes that come to life, stabbing their victims and putting them into a deep sleep. An actor will be able to give in to their overly dramatic side and create set pieces around them, manipulating people nearby into "performing" for them. A hair stylist will have the power to create scissors out of their hands and grow out their own hair to use as a lasso to trap those they wish to punish.

The darkness in your heart will generate something different for every single individual, and no "villain" will be alike. Chaos will run rampant during the light hours and those uninfected will have to find a way to reverse this curse. The infected will recognize this as a "kissing disease", and through trial and error the uninfected will have to seek out the new tattooed marks and kiss them away, freeing the characters from their binds and bringing light back to the surface.

Good luck getting to each mark though. It will take teamwork and some clever thinking to outsmart the infected and hold them down. With a little skill, you might just be able to create your own objects to pin down the problem and save the day.
BONUS.
Beginning on the fifth, a few things will happen. For one thing, anyone who visits the liaison's office any time after this point will find that the door is locked and the office is empty. That's probably nothing to worry about. However, messages will be sent to each user's phone over the course of the next few weeks with status updates.

Users will find themselves in possession of what looks like a digital map of Recollé with several black dots scattered around. As each user successfully fuses an object that manifests a door, a black dot turns white and flashes on the screen. Over time, all of these doors will begin to appear to show users locations that may grant them access to the next layer.

Users will also find themselves in possession of a short biography about themselves. Featuring information such as their height, weight, level of combat and other key notable traits (three best qualities and three worst qualities), these biographies also appear to have notes added about regains you've recovered or events that have happened in the city.

Too bad these biographies aren't just meant for you. The moment you read over them, the biography forwards itself to just about anyone on the Retrospec app and you'll receive someone else's biography to read over instead. Not long after, a video call will connect you to this new person and cannot be disconnected for a minimum of fifteen minutes.

This gives "getting to know each other" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? Maybe you'll learn something useful today.
NOTES.
Welcome to [community profile] recolle's February event part one!

You can claim three freebies on this log!
-Players may claim one freebie for manifesting an item and dealing with the consequences. This item may be a positive or negative trait, and this thread must be at least five comments from you.
-Players may claim one freebie by fusing one of their objects with someone else's and creating a door. This thread must be at least five comments from you.
-Players may claim one freebie by healing someone from the kissing disease. This thread must be at least five comments from you.

-Please keep in mind that the bonus is a bonus prompt! If you do not want your character's biography floating around for other users to see, you do not have to be affected by this prompt.

-While the Chinese zodiac traits are linked, these are merely suggestions that you can build off of. These traits will be what's most prevalent and attached to characters, but you're free to have others in a similar vein show up. Objects manifested from these ideas into real life may also vary and the above in the log are simply examples.

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 additional information as well!
thisloveisjustice: (smile)

bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-09 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
Tatsuo only caught the tail end of Isamu's statement as he walked up, having spotted the blue robot from across the street.

"Is he discussing the existence of the soul?"

Philosophy, not one of Tatsuo's strong points. But boy will he watch Togusa hash it out with a robot. Because who wouldn't want to watch a robot discuss something like this?
standalonehuman: (TogusaTachi)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-09 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Isamu waves one claw hand excitedly. "Mister Tatsuo! Yes! I was telling Mister Togusa about all of the things I was reading at the Library! Mister Shuji insisted that I get breaks like the human employees, even though I don't get tired. So I started reading on my breaks!"

This answers Togusa's question, as well. He hmms out loud. "So, you're saying that the form is the function?"

"Correct!" Isamu holds up a hand again. "But that calls into question what the function is of someone with a non-human form. By the same theory, that means that anything with a non-human form has the function to serve humanity. But many many philosophers disagree with that!"

"As do I," Togusa points out.
thisloveisjustice: (clueless)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-10 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
That whistling noise is most of that going right over Tatsuo's head.

"I have no idea what any of that means, but please continue, I might catch on."

Putting the robot to work in a library was genius though. It gets to learn, but from an already curated collection. Unlike the Internet, which is filled with unsourced blogs and conspiracy theories.

Tatsuo will take a robot discussing the shape of souls over a robot discussing whether aliens built the pyramids.
standalonehuman: (TogusaPonder2)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-10 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Togusa holds up a hand. "All right, all right. So, in most philosophical discussions of the soul, there's a difference between something that is living and has a soul, and something that is not living and doesn't have a soul, right? Other philosophies take it further and say that humans are the only ones with souls, so there is something special about us."

Isamu nods in the way that it can, which means his whole front half bobs up and down. "The Shinto religion conceptualizes souls a little differently, though. Spirits don't necessarily leave this world, and can be communicated with. And a soul can even be granted to objects, but those objects need to have served in order to earn one. So there has to be an inherent purpose behind the soul, right?"
thisloveisjustice: (Default)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-11 07:31 am (UTC)(link)
Tatsuo would argue that the main different between something living and not living is the fact that one is alive, but he can see why philosophers would feel that's too simplistic an explanation. He would also like for someone to try to prove that his dog doesn't have a soul. Because rude.

But he is more or less catching the general gist, especially once they get to the whole Shinto angle of things.

"Ah. Like how some swords in Japan are thought to have souls."

It helps that he's met... two of those...
standalonehuman: (TogusaSmirk)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-14 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Togusa shares a smile. Perhaps they aren’t swords anymore, but they were.

"Right!" Isamu cries out and waves a hand. "Or I read about a teapot that had been used in thousands of tea ceremonies! And certain philosophies would state that the swords or teapots have earned a soul through enough use. But, in a way, it's sad, isn't it?"

Togusa puts a hand to his chin. "Sad?"

"They didn't get a say into how they turned out. Form determines function. The sword can't ever be anything but a sword, whether it has a soul or not!"
thisloveisjustice: (clueless)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-15 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
"Does the soul then become a curse, is that what you're implying?"

Just when Tatsuo thinks he's grasped the discussion... he's not so sure anymore.

"An object gains a soul. But does that soul then doom the object to a miserable existence, because it's trapped by it's form?"
standalonehuman: (TogusaUhhh)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-15 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Exactly!" Isamu cries.

"Uh, I don't think so," Togusa argues. Now is when he has to step in. "Getting that soul, it gives the individual more of a choice in how they live their lives from that point on."

"Maybe the world was acting on the object, when it was just an object. But once a ghost gets involved, then the best thing happens. Free will."

"Free will?" Isamu sounds confused.
thisloveisjustice: (Default)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-15 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)

"Free will. The ability of an individual to make choices about its own destiny."

Tatsuo glances over at Togusa. The way Togusa had used the word 'ghost' was a bit... different from how the word is usually used.

"Ghost? Not 'soul'?"

standalonehuman: (TogusaThoughtful)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-17 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Isamu tilts, his whole body leaning to one side, and his eyeball swivels back and forth. Processing.

Togusa puts a hand to his chin. "It's a term from the other Togusa's world. It almost seems to encompass the soul in a data format. It's a part of the self that is separate from the physical form, but in that world, I think they can quantify it. Which is," Togusa struggles for the right words.

"Exciting and frightening all at once?"
thisloveisjustice: (stunned)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-20 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
Tatsuo blinks a couple times. Because it pretty much sounds like Togusa is saying his past self's world could actually detect a person's soul, in data format... whatever that means.

"Wow. That is... wow."

Then he frowns.

"So if a ghost is something that's data... then could machines have ghosts?"
standalonehuman: (TogusaTalkDown)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] standalonehuman 2019-02-21 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
It's as if that question came out and flicked Togusa right between the eyes. "Uh. I mean."

He glances nervously at Isamu, who, for his part, is remaining silent, in processing thought.

Togusa's answer is more soft. "I think that might be just what Isamu is trying to figure out. And I don't know if I can answer it for you."
thisloveisjustice: (Default)

Re: bonus 2

[personal profile] thisloveisjustice 2019-02-21 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)

That does not answer his question Togusa.

Tatsuo raises an eyebrow, then glances at the robot. An AI trying to figure out if it has the digital form of a soul. Yeah... that is some deep sci-fi shit.

"Well, if he ever figures it out, let me know? Because now I'm dead curious."