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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!
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-13 11:08 am (UTC)(link)
[ anna’s humor reminds him of levi’s, in a way. it was dark and held a saddening truth but the way she says it just— makes you want to smile with her. perhaps that’s her whole way of even dealing with it, because he knows his cousin, when it started happening . . . it was horrible. she couldn’t balance the changes and live at all with them. she couldn’t even go out, or play guitar, or speak, until she lost the app, and lost all of that.

he can’t fathom half of what anna truly feels, because if he were gaining metal parts, he . . . shit. if he’s having a crisis now he can imagine then. but the way he’s smiling at her not out of compassion or that he thinks it’s funny, but huge respect. she’s a strong woman. a very strong woman, and not (just) because she kicked ass. ]


What’s your plan?

[ knowing how she works can bring some ideas over. ]
hauntedsavior: (count the years of isolation)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-14 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
My plan?

[she echoes him with a smirk, and her good eye trails over to him while she tries to focus on the bass. she can already plunk out "Smoke on the Water" from muscle memory. not too bad.]

Keep going. Keep surviving, doing what I can do to make myself better. Chase whatever dreams I've got left. Wouldn't mind being able to look myself in the mirror again. [that one's a little real, but whatever.] Unless you mean, like, specific shit, 'cause I got nothing. Haven't been out in public much since this happened, so I guess my immediate plan is to get out of my own damn head enough to show my face to people again.

[even when she's depressed, when she feels less than human for reasons that don't extend to her robot parts, Eren has this way of drawing determination out of her. she's really grateful for his presence in her life and she doubts she'll be able to repay him properly.]
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-17 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he can’t even say he meant something else with that. eren follows along with smoke on the water, it’s easy enough for him to follow through one tone higher, but not looking at it has him making some little mistakes (that are quickly fixed. ]

That’s something we can both relate to. [ even if the circumstance is different, it’s just. never even easy. and, hell— she had the same effect on him. ] And it’s the best start.

[ he inhales, and while this might sound. god, it probably sounds really soft and out of nowhere, but he’s a fucking need and he’s going to say it anyway. ]

I’m glad we did this. It’s a little more than GIANT⚡️ROBOT for me.
hauntedsavior: (met your stare with blank expression)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-18 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[Anna grins when he starts playing along, but she's only got the part that everyone knows down and not the rest of the actual song with, like, the. bum dum dum single note parts. those things. whatever. she knows what she's talking about. good thing Eren's here to bring her back to reality with that sudden statement. it takes her a second to process it, and yeah, it sounds a little softer than expected, but.]

[they're in strange times right now. all of them. she lets her own expression soften to match.]


Yeah. I don't think it was ever just about being in a band. Not to get all sentimental, but what else are you looking for here? Just someone who gets you?
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-19 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
There’s that, [ honestly eren knows the rest of smoke in the water but it just sort of summers down into random note playing. single notes are the easier ones, he agrees, and if his fingers allow it (they partially do), he strums around randomly, jumping in between easy songs he knows.

now here comes him, being all emotional. ]
and there’s me getting me again.

[ eren laughs a little to himself at that though, his ears the firsts to go bright red. ]

As bad as that sounds out loud, but [ he shrugs, and a toast to anna’s last text, ] fuck it.
hauntedsavior: (shores of tranquility)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-19 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[she'll just be content letting him bang out the tunes, because she needs to give her fingers a break anyway. and that's definitely something interesting to hear. he seems... well, to Anna, he's seemed like he had everything under control for a while. but they only really ever see each other in contexts where they're posturing, right? talking about how much they're gonna kill Vanderweele. how he doesn't have a chance in hell versus them.]

[this is different.]


Didn't think you were dealing with stuff like that. Anything you wanna talk about? Like, for real, I guess.
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-21 07:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I’m that good of a liar at the wrong time, I guess.

[ he says that with an apologetic smile, and there’s partial joke to it. only partial. because it was true that he was good at hiding things, to an extent. he could win an oscar with his acting.

but act in front of the wrong (or right) person, and they’ll bring his stage down right on him. it’s also easy enough to pluck out this tune at a steady speed. his fingers aren’t that equipped for fast playing. ]


When it comes to these memories . . . I have a hard time separating things. Or using the right lesson for the wrong situation.
hauntedsavior: (all sense of past and future)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-22 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
[...huh.]

I get that.

[she says it after taking a second just to process what she's hearing. it happens so often, this conversation that she's entering into, and yet so infrequently that she's not even sure whether this is something she's discussed with Eren or just with Freya and a whole cadre of other people who'd gone on to lose the app.]

Remember when I first got here? I was terrified of A2. I thought she was a mindless murderer, and when I got my sword skills back, it just started feeling natural to kill things. [at least she's keeping her voice down.] I kind of think that if I hadn't had a couple months to cool off with Annalise, I would've gotten bad.
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-24 12:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[ farther down the rabbit hole they go. eren stops playing for a moment. ]

What made you think differently about her? [ a beat. ] If you do.
hauntedsavior: (omnipresent endless knot)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-24 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[well, that's a fuckin' doozy of a question. she thinks back; going past summer is difficult for a few reasons.]

I talked about it with Kara when she was on here, and she convinced me that the android I thought A2 just killed out of cold blood was a mercy kill, and I got a memory to back that up. [a pause.] Then I met the android she mercy killed. Remember with the carnival and all the people in tubes? 2B just walked out of one of them and we talked for a while. She told me A2 was... strong. Maybe the strongest android she knew. But kind, too, because of everything she'd been through.

She told me that she thought A2 was happy. And I told her that A2 was helping me, too, and I was... glad for everything she's been doing for me. And I think that's when I really turned around on her.
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-26 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ eren listens and listens well. because it has everything to do with what he was thinking. the guitar is silent in his lap, and he maps out similarities. he’s never met anyone, not like that—

but his mouth cracks open, and so does he. ]


I didn’t get that sort of closure, yet. [ yet, though. he knows it’s a yet, but even then. eren shakes his head, because deep in him he knows anyway. ]

The Eren from then did a lot of wrong things for a good cause. [ the list was grand and would only really stop at one place: a lot, a lot, and a lot of killing, a lot of turning and a lot of. shit. ] But I started to question how wrong those things really were.

Because I’d rather think I was right and had no choice, than wrong and— horrible. It didn’t stop at genocide.

[ but, eren sighs, and his features soften so, so greatly. it’s when he realizes he’s staring at anna. not smiling, but— calmer. like he has an answer. ]

But I know he isn’t. And I’m not either. [ he shrugs. ] Even if I still feel like we’re the same person. I just have a chance that he never had.
hauntedsavior: (met your stare with blank expression)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-02-26 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[and it's Anna's turn to listen, and when Eren drops that g-word, she puffs out some air through her nose and grimly smirks.]

Enough of my best friends say their past selves committed genocide and I'm gonna stop being surprised by it. [maybe not the time to react like this, but, well.]

We were faced with... impossible choices. Things that one person couldn't be asked to decide on their own. We did what we did because the alternative was unacceptable. [she's talked with herself, with others about this a lot.] A2 killed people to protect them from the logic virus. She saw what happened to her friends when that thing took over their circuits. Giving them a quick death was easier and faster than watching them fight against the people they cared about until they burned themselves out or... [she puts a hand to her chest, where her heart would be, and doesn't finish that sentence. and she shakes her head, like she'd gotten lost in her own world, her own memories, and like she'd forgotten Eren was even there.]

The point is that even if we are them, nobody's asking us to do what they did. We're what would happen if they never had to make impossible choices.
usurpers: (Default)

[personal profile] usurpers 2019-02-28 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he shakes his own head as she finishes her thoughts, one of the hands holding his guitar stretching over to grip her arm. she doesn’t have to apologize, or anything, because it hurts, and it’s an impossible choice, it’s one they all had to make to, well, make a difference. he smiles anyway, because inside his own chest there’s something tightening all over, but—

she gets him. he gets her. none of them were alone. ]


We can make a difference differently this time.

[ like, helping retrospec save the world and expiring an old fart with twisted ideals. ]

And I’d rather keep this life, even after this is all over. You?
hauntedsavior: (all sense of past and future)

[personal profile] hauntedsavior 2019-03-02 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
Wouldn't have it any other way.

[even with everything that A2 did. even with all that the android in her memories needs to answer for. even with her vision loss, her limb loss, her organ loss. A2 changed her life, and she doesn't ever want to think about what she would be like without her again. she looks at him with her good eye and tries to sound badass and detached, but she can't even manage that.]

[she's too sincere. too serious right now. there's a patch on her face and metal jabbing into her waist and a fusion bomb in her chest and it doesn't matter. because she's right where she belongs.]


Right there next to you until the curtain falls.