lifeaftr | November Undercurrent: And We Give Thanks

NOVEMBER UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Have you told someone you loved them yet?
When: November 3rd to November 20th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: Nothing of note; please mark if anything comes up!

Take Me Back to the Reasons Why
The Water wishes to demonstrate their power to you, as well as just what they mean, when they suggest that they require your cooperation. They are going to bring back the harvest island of Nuidan, a generally fondly remembered island that explorers have encountered in the past. What's more, they're going to require your help to do it.

Starting November 3rd, characters will discover a simple strip of dark leather among their belongings, meant to be worn around the neck or wrist. They can disregard it, of course, but if they attempt to discard or destroy it, it will always find its way back to them, no matter how improbable this might seem. How strange...

Perhaps even stranger is the sudden appearance of a smooth slab of stone, half-submerged in the waters just off of Ensō's coast. It's an altar, and around its edges are a series of deep notches, as though something is meant to be inserted into them. In its center is a pool of water, though it curiously doesn't seem to reflect anything.

The purpose of this will only really become obvious once the month goes on. Characters will find themselves to compelled to be honest with the people around them as to why they care, why they appreciate them as people, or what they like most about them. This compulsion can vary wildly and at the player's discretion, from a gentle mental pressure to an unstoppable force, and anything in between!

The bottom line is that every time one admits to some feeling of gratitude, no matter how small or big, their little plait of leather will receive a crystal from the interaction. All crystals will be roughly the same shape, but they may vary in color, pattern, and texture. Some might be simple sticks of quartz, while others might be comprised of myriad, ever-changing swirls of color. Again, the only limit here is your imagination.

Now the presence of that strange, altar-shaped stone in the water might make a bit more sense. Those notches in its sides are the perfect size and shape to fit a crystal smoothly into any one of them. The more grateful interactions one has with others, the more crystals they will gather, and the more they can fit into the altar. As more crystals are fed to the altar, it will start to glow. The pool of water at the altar's top will start to reflect the likeness island of Nuidan in increasing clarity, as though one is peering at its likeness in a snowglobe. What's more is that the number of crystals in the altar will very obviously affect Nuidan's state: very few crystals will make the island look as though it is mostly wilderness only a handful of structures in dire need of repair, while a great deal of crystals will cause the island to look as though it is thriving, in full bloom, and in more need of harvest than maintenance.

But, ultimately, the state in which Nuidan returns to you is up to you...and how far you're willing to go to express a little gratitude. Don't worry if you don't know anyone, either - this marks a great opportunity to start doing nice things for people, even if you don't know them! You've got most of the month to get to know each other, after all.

Don't think you can get away with heaping compliments on your closest friends and companions, however; variety is the name of the game here. While you can collect all sorts of crystals for personal use from repeat interactions, you can only feed one crystal to the altar per person. That is to say, Character A can be as grateful to Character B as they like, but only one crystal from each character can be delivered to the altar. If they want to procure more for the altar's purposes, Character A will have to have a positive interaction with Character C, and so on.

Take Me Back to That Big Sky

Of course, there's a lot going on in the background as well. You're free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of November's Undercurrent Event, as well as the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. You are very, very free to let your dreams about creepers and baby lorbies become reality, and you are always free to create your own individual logs and posts as needed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them over on our Monthly Rundown post!

November Timeline

[ ♆ ] November 3rd: "And We Give Thanks" begins and lasts until November 20th
[ ♆ ] November 4th: "Aw, Man" begins and lasts until November 12th
[ ♆ ] November 11th: "The Lorblings" begins and lasts until November 25th
[ ♆ ] November 20th: Nuidan returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] November 21st: "Return to Your Roots" begins and lasts until November 30th

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Centuries.

[Figures. He, uh. Looks good for his age?]

So, you know, I'm just putting it out there that you'd maybe be justified in wanting a little comeuppance.

...do you really think that?

[It's hardly as if Asgore hasn't spoken to people who do; just look how excited the Underground was to go free. But even then, he doesn't think it's about comeuppance for them. Monsters talk about wanting to see the sky, to have space and clean air, to live in peace - the destruction of humanity seems like something of an afterthought to most of them, just a bit of business that the King will have to wrap up in the middle there. Asgore suspects it isn't really real to them.

And that's alright. That's why he's always ordered the humans brought to him, and not harmed by the Guard. He should bear the burden of his own decree.

But monsters who knew humanity, monsters like Toriel and Gerson, don't think they deserve comeuppance. Asgore doesn't. Washington probably wouldn't, either, if he knew the extent of what Asgore had promised - but it's funny to hear him advocate anything even similar.]

[Wash breathes out, long and slow. When he answers, he doesn't immediately respond to the question.]

I fought in a war. The War. It was...big. So it wasn't...it was not a win or defeat thing. It was a "for the preservation of our species" thing. We were facing absolute extinction, so it was humans up against this coalition of alien forces and the odds were stacked so significantly against us that people were willing to try anything.

If you brought one of those aliens up to any one of us, it'd be dead. Wouldn't matter if it was a kid or not. It'd be dead out of principle. It'd be dead out of spite. It'd be dead because we were dying and exhausted and miserable and we were losing.

I'm saying that I know people who wouldn't hesitate. Who wouldn't have then, and maybe still wouldn't now. Doesn't matter if the War's over. They'd kill anything that reminded them of what we lost.

[Asgore's quiet, listening. Some of this is uncomfortably familiar.]

That sounds very much like the War between humans and monsters. It was what led to our banishment. I...fought in it as well, when I was young.

[And he can't quite make eye contact anymore, because, well. Washington saw that, didn't he? That was the war Asgore had thought the two of them were fighting - when he had roared at him over unprovoked attacks, lost villages, and murdered children. Asgore during Nastrandir was not quite the same as he was during the original War; he remembers being angry, yes, but he never even had time for a confrontation with any individual human like that. It was all just fear, desperation, exhaustion. He likes to think he wouldn't have lost control back then as thoroughly as he did at Washington.

But then again, he's lost his temper towards humanity before.]

I had only just become king then. There had been tensions between us and the humans for a long time, but we still did not expect them to attack out of the blue. I did not realize they had come to fear us that much. Or perhaps they just thought we were newly vulnerable, after my father's death...

[And maybe they were. Asgore cannot say how the old King would have handled the War, but he can't have done much worse.]

But that was such a long time ago. I am one of only three monsters left who were alive during that time. Even when Cha - when my child fell. [Does it still matter now?] Even then, most of monsterkind had known nothing but the Underground. I cannot say humanity was popular, but I do not think it was so personal anymore for them.

[...none of which has anything much to do with him and his decision.]

[He almost says their name. Wash doesn't catch it, doesn't think much of it, even though he knew the kid in question - and doesn't know it.]

It sounds like it was more complicated for you. Political tensions, surrender and banishment even being an option... [Not so for humanity, during the War. It was going to be victory, or absolute extermination. And the latter was the most probable.]

Still. Easy decision or not, it's more than what people I know would've done.

I suppose they meant it as a mercy...

[Or maybe not. The way monsters can die from despair, and the fact that humans knew that once upon a time...

This is going nowhere good.]

Well. It was all quite some time ago.

[A mercy, huh?]

[Death is generally more merciful than something drawn out. But that's not his motivation to deconstruct. He wasn't there.]

...yeah. Sorry. I guess I shouldn't have brought it up.

Please, do not apologize. It's quite alright.

[Also, well.]

Have I apologized to you properly for attempting to kill you? [He did, profusely, but Wash also didn't remember any of it happening at the time.] I do not think it makes any difference that I did not succeed.

Uh, you did. Not that I realized what you were doing.

[Fortunately, he's now more or less stable. More stable than he was, mnemonically, which isn't a very high bar for him. Which is nice.]

It's fine. You're really not the first person who's tried to kill me. You weren't yourself.

Nevertheless.

[It isn't as though they were really at war.]

And it was unnecessary to...set the forest on fire.

November Undercurrent: And We Give Thanks

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