etrayalogs | FEBRUARY MINGLE

Entry tags:

FEBRUARY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: February 14th - March
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: The arrival of newcomers, a mini mission, and some new city features!
NOTES\WARNINGS:

⏵ arrival ⏴
Welcome to Etraya!

Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital.

In the hospital's lobby are several party tables set out with miscellaneous baked goods: croissants, cookies, breads, cake slices, as well as tea and coffee to accompany them - or hot chocolate, for those who are opposed to the other offerings.

Outside the hospital, the last remnants of snow are melting in the sunlight as the weather begins to warm up. It's still chilly enough one might want to put on a coat, but not so cold a jacket is necessary for wandering around without freezing off one's fingers.

We hope you enjoy your stay.

⏵ heroes return ⏴

As the Quantum Rail train glides to a halt, returning passengers step out onto familiar ground - the train station, right where they had initially begun their mission. When exiting the station, their earpieces vibrate, indicating the automatic download of a detailed map which highlights key locations, transit paths, and notable landmarks. As Aurora promised, she had been working on a few renovations around Etraya! A sleek trolley system now winds through Etraya, following clearly marked pathways through the city bubble to make travel across the city smoother. However, the trolley only moves one way, eternally following the loop Aurora has set it on. And because of this, it takes six hours to complete it's loop all the way around. Don't miss your stop!

Pets and animals have been returned to their usual preferred areas, some awaiting the arrival of their owners, and others keeping to themselves in the forested areas throughout Etraya.

Beyond the small upgrades, things seem relatively unchanged - until one familiar sign catches the eye. One marked by four vertical lines, methodically crossed out one by one: the final slash has now been drawn through. The tally is complete. What it indicates has yet to be made clear, but it has to mean something, right? No one would go through the effort of making an ominous-sounding sign without following through.

⏵ love in the air ⏴

This Valentines Day, Aurora and the companion bots have opted to try something a little different: they have scattered mystery valentines across the city. Hidden within mailboxes, tucked into cafe menus, slipped under doors, on the outside of high windows for those wall-crawlers to spot. There are countless of these little slips of papers, strewn throughout the city. And within each valentine, is a challenge or gesture to complete. Please feel free to make these up yourselves as long as they fit in with the theme!

Some examples include:

Deliver a flower to a stranger.
Write a heartfelt poem for someone.
Share a box of chocolates!
Confess your feelings for another.
Play matchmaker for two people - this can be platonic, or romantic!
Gift a friend with a stuffed animal.
Give five different people a genuine compliment.

While not mandatory, completing five tasks will earn an individual an additional ten points to use towards anything they would like!

Each little Valentine is signed "Your Secret Admirer. ♡", and some of them may even be addressed to specific individuals. Don't be surprised, Eddie, if you see one or two that are specifically addressed to you lurking around your collection of chicken friends!

And while most of these are harmless, some of the valentines cards come with effects for those who come into contact with the paper. Perhaps they thought it was a piece of garbage, or were just kicking it out of the way rather than intending on taking part. It doesn't matter! They get to join in on the fun, too.

Heart Eyes - your pupils literally turn into hearts for a few hours, making it hard to focus on anything other than things (or people) you find attractive.
Love-Struck Stammer - You can only speak in poetic compliments or romantic declarations, regardless of whom you're speaking to.
Chocolate Bliss - Everything feels good. Simple. Easy. As if there's nothing in the world to concern yourself with. You feel happy, without any concerns or worry.
Rose-Tinted Vision - everything looks soft and romantic, as if you're in a romance novel. You know the ones.
Magnetic Attraction - regardless of what you had been doing, you suddenly find yourself unable to leave the side of the person closest to you. Had you been eating chocolates while walking down the street? Well, have fun getting stuck to the guy who'd been out for a jog!
Serenade Syndrome - you find it impossible to resist the urge to sing your words, turning all conversations into love ballads.
Heartstrings - A thread appears, connecting you to someone close by who you share many similarities too. Perhaps you had never met this person before, but the threads tied around your pinky fingers that refuse to let go until you allow yourself to open up to them clearly means you should be a little more familiar with them.

Love is in the air—or maybe just a bit of well-intended chaos! 💕

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome back from the mission, and welcome to Etraya for our newcomers! We've tried to keep this log simple for an easy introduction, as well as some downtime for our mission-goers who worked hard to solve the Quantum Rail mystery.

There is something else going on, but. . . well, no one seems to know what! The computer that had been on the lower floor of the hospital is now missing, and Aurora may seem a little flustered as she flits around Etraya, in search of something.

For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Cookies

[Connor doesn't necessarily need to eat, but he's been lead to the tables and so he sits. He may look a little different as he sits down. He's missing his jaw plate, a plate over his eye, and his fingers are a mix of skin color and black. He looks at one of the other residents of the table and tries to smile.]

Hello, my name is Connor, I'm the Android sent by Cyberlife.

Valentines!
[Connor doesn't have any particular pathing as he looks for the little valentines, but he is following the suggestion to do so. He is a bit worse for wear with a missing jaw plate, a missing eye, and black and nude fingers. He's just found a valentine and sliding his mismatched fingers into a mailbox when he realizes someone is near him.]

Hello my name is Connor, I'm the android sent by Cyberlife.

[And oop out slides the valentine! He holds it up between his fingers.]

I believe we have work to do.

Do characters ICly know that completing tasks gets them points?

Yes, they'll be made aware!

I. Arrival

[Max is not very good at it. The arrival part, that is. Outside of his immediate tension from being there one moment, here the next, there is one other thing he is immediately struck by: how clean this space around him is. There aren't things pilfered from every corner of the room, and there's no rot on the curtains, no signs of horrible aging or desperate times. He hasn't seen such cleanliness in decades, and never anything so white. It hurts his eyes, but — can't stay in here long. Gotta stay on the move.

And so he does, pacing through the halls like a man on a mission. He collects his tattered bag and completely sidesteps Aurora and her attempts at an explanation — nothing she's not unused to, probably. Not with people Like Max. His eyes are tracking around the hospital, registering only in passing the faces of the Etrayans that happen to be in the same area as their new arrival.

Then he is distracted by the lobby food.

Max is not the healthiest looking man to arrive out of nowhere. After walking away from the Citadel, the year that had followed was a cruel and unrelenting one, one that consisted of too little food and water, of scavenging between jobs he hadn't particularly wanted to take. He's too skinny even for his usually broad stature, enough so that he immediately makes a beeline for the baked goods and starts greedily choking down as much as he can before he gets sick; there's not a lot of difference between him and a hungry, beat-down dog left in a kennel for days.

So. That's Max.]

II. Heroes Return / Etraya

[Everything is, again, clean.

He grunts as he works down into a crouch. His knee brace is old and creaks as he sticks a hand into a pile of melting snow, scooping it up to look at it in his weathered palm. Couldn't even remember if he'd ever seen snow before, and he quickly palms it into his mouth and swallows down the chill. The other Etrayans who had been on the train mission had already arrived and were disembarking into their newly refurbished world. Max watches them with a critical eye at times, studying what he's meant to expect being here.

They look well-fed.

He does eventually end up at the diner... or rather, outside of it, at one of its many dumpsters. He picks through the rotten stuff, focuses on breads and fruit and vegetables that aren't on the cusp of decay. Some of it goes into his pack before he takes a bite out of a tomato he found with the top only partly sheered off. It's so good, he ends up slumping into the wall and just savoring it for a while.

Someone, please tell him he can eat inside without payment.

If he's not there, you might see him watching people from roofs with easily accessible ladders, or somewhere just out of frame of the city itself; he enjoys the outskirts of anywhere he stays... and beyond that, he is transfixed by the forested areas. Maybe because it reminds him of a world that doesn't exist anymore. A world that Furiosa had hoped to see. He wonders... how they're doing, in their Citadel. Have they built it up into something better? Something worth living for? He can only hope so.]

III. Love in the Air

[The poor bot that attempts to deliver his valentine gets shoved over the moment it tries to reach out a card to him. Which. Is par the course. Max looks at the well-meaning robot with an anxious glower, then grumbles under his breath, thinking of a particularly annoying robot who has bothered him plenty already. His hand leaves the handgun that is holstered on his hip, and he walks away.

But not before crumpling up the card and throwing it in the gutter.

The poor guy doesn't realize that it's futile, because the card has been touched. He doesn't even have much feeling in his pinky finger anymore, so he doesn't feel the thread that suddenly wraps it... and connects him to someone else who happens to be wandering close by. Looks like the valentine cards got 'im anyway. The loser.]

IV. Wildcard / Notes

[Feel free to hit me up for a starter or for any kinda wildcard! I'm open to most, anyway. My plurk is

simpledog, or you can PM me for chitchat! Also, blanket apologies for any threads that are cut short because Max is a total asshole.]

[Connor recognizes Catdog, but isn't sure how to approach him in public with the mission they have hanging over them. Still, there's something in Connor that needs to take care of Max. So he makes his way out of the crowd to sit next to him at the table.]

Catdog. These have limited nutrients.

[He looks over at Max with his mismatched eyes as he tries to find the healthiest cookie from the bunch. It's a peanut butter one topped with sugar. At least the peanut butter can provide protein.]

[Another weird game from Aurora with all this Valentine’s shit, Hank assumes. On the way out of the apartment building, he sees the mailboxes stuffed with brightly covered cards — do they really need mailboxes? — and then he hears that voice. Staticky and yet familiar.

And that name.]

Connor?

[That’s not... no. This is a nightmare. Connor is gone, taken from him by Echo-whoever. And Aurora is easier to blame for all that, but she wouldn’t do something like this, would she? Wouldn’t show him Connor, but... hurt.

Hank knows he’s not drunk because he could never cook up a vision like this, and because the pain at seeing Connor all roughed up is acute. Squeezing his stomach. Nightmares hurt, but nothing like this.]

Who the fuck...?

[“Who hurt you?” he means to ask, but the words are thick in his throat.]

[Connor blinks at Hank a moment before introducing himself again.]

It's me, lieutenant. It's Connor. [He continues to hold out the valentine even as his voice rasps. As if everything about this is normal.]

We have a job to do.

[He will continue to hold the valentine out in his mismatched fingers until Hank takes it.]

Fuck your goddamn job, Connor. We have to get you to...

[Where? The hospital. Hadn’t Connor told him something about the hospital being dangerous? But Connor is gone — Hank had accepted that.]

This your job? [Hank mutters this as he grabs the stupid card. And, perhaps predictably, Aurora’s little bullshit kicks in, tying Hank’s pinky finger to Connor’s in a glimmery flash. Threaded together.

Hank waggles his finger at Connor now.]

She tell you to do this? Jesus, Connor.

[Connor looks down at his finger with his mismatched eyes and then back up at Hank.]

We're tied together, lieutenant.

[It reminds him of...] This may be the red string of fate. In many cultures, it is regarded as a sign that two people are destined to meet.

I did not do this. Perhaps it is a magic trick?

[His voice continues to rasp on as Connor talks.]

Oh, it’s magic all right. Fucking annoying magic.

[Just like it’s magic that Connor’s here. Another weird test. Fuck with the old guy! Hit him where it hurts most.]

So we’re meant to meet. Great. We’ve met. Now we can just — [voice softening, irritation fading into concern] — Connor, what the hell happened to you? Did Aurora hurt you?

Hurt me?

[Connor's mind scans to where it meets another. Keep to parameters.]

I fell down the stairs. A couple times.

[It's a blatantly obvious lie.]

( it's the middle of the night. or close enough, because damian doesn't do wandering around in the daylight. the night is reserved for the bat, and robin - well.

he's lurking in the shadows, watching passersby wander aimlessly around their prison of a city. carefully studies the faces of new arrivals when he finds them, idly categorizes the movements of others. it's habit more than anything else. regardless of damian's opinions of anyone, they are all stuck here together, there is no way out, and even if there had been, there's no guarantee out would come with the results they're looking for.

but connor's face isn't new. it's different, he looks - worn down, damaged, plates separating from his artificial flesh, but he certainly still appears to be a connor.

and damian is in a foul mood as it is.

he waits until connor is just passed where damian has been lurking in wait, before his sneakers leave the edge of the wall and he's launching himself off the building, fully intending on landing not beside connor as would be polite but straight on top of his shoulders, legs on either side of his neck with one hand wrapped around a batarang and the other left free - just in case. )

That is such horse shit, Connor. You really think I’m that stupid?

[Hank gestures to Connor’s face with his threaded pinky.]

You want me to believe you lost an eye falling down the stairs?

They were very rough stairs.

[Connor nods firmly, as if this isn't all horseshit.]

I can still see out of it.

[Hank gawks at him.]

Fucking wiseass. Why don’t you want to tell me what happened, Connor?

They were long stairs.

[Blink blink.]

[Connor blinks before he realizes he's being followed, another plate scuttering across the concrete as Connor makes impact.]

Hello, I don't believe we've met.

[As if this is the most normal thing.]

If I may, I have already lost several plates, may I recover this one?

Wasn’t born yesterday, Connor. Need to get your eyes checked out if you think I was.

[Hank doesn’t know how to help him, especially when he won’t talk.]

What’s with the bullshit? Why are you lying to me, Connor?

[Connor hits a wall in his programming. Lieutenant Hank Anderson is not permitted to know above this level. The wall is dark red and Connor has been hit with enough times it could have knocked the plates off his face.

And yet he's still half-willing to take another blow to reconnect with Hank after so long apart.]

I am not permitted to tell you. [Which is already leaning heavily against his programming.]

No.

( not yet. can't you see he's busy here, connor? especially when he gives an answer that further irritates an already vexed damian. there's no attempt to throw damian off, no attempt to fight back, which he takes as good of a sign as any to grab a fistful of connor's hair, trying to shove his head down so damian can go for the port on the back of his neck. )

Please do not touch that. [Connor can feel tiny hands going for the port and realizes that now is not the time to allow the child do as he likes. Connor bucks up under Damian, trying to fight him off proper now.]

Uh huh. [Lips pursed.] This some CyberLife bullshit then? Kamski? Did that fucker hurt you? Because if he did, I swear to god I’m gonna fucking...

[Not that there’s much for Hank to do from here. But he would.]

I simply fell down the stairs, lieutenant.

[Just every stair that has ever existed.]

Ya fell down the stairs, yeah, I heard that the first eight times, Connor.

[SIGH. Hank rolls his eyes.]

If you can’t tell me about how you “fell down the stairs,” then why the hell are you feeding me that bullshit at all?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 123

FEBRUARY MINGLE

mod queries.

Connor | Detroit: Become Human

no subject

no subject

Max Rockatansky | MMFR

Arrival!

Valentine’s 💔

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

wildcard.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: wildcard.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject