lifeaftr | January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

JANUARY UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Hey bud, how's it growing?
When: January 3rd to January 20th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: This event has a potential for body horror and character death; please mark anything as it comes up!

A Notion Growing Inside Me

Those of you who weren't with us the last time Umui entered the archipelago didn't have to contend with the lethal illness known as the Overgrowth personally, but anyone who remembers it probably doesn't remember it fondly. Fortunately, this isn't quite the same strain of the illness that you had to contend with the last time. It's not unrelentingly and uncompromisingly fatal, for one! That's always nice.

For those that need a primer on the Overgrowth, it is best described as a sickness that overcomes you with floral growth both inside and outside your body that can only be cured by expressions of emotional honesty. Expressions of truths, affections, and admissions of things that you have hidden from yourselves or from others were critical in dispensing of the illness. These could be as simple as admissions of past sins or the revealing of secrets, or as grandiose and overt as confessions of guilt or love. That general idea will remain more or less the key means of curing this strain as well, though the stakes fortunately aren't as high this go around! Which is to say, if you fail to have any grand emotional epiphanies by the time this event ends, you aren't doomed to suffer a character death; symptoms will simply dissipate come January 20th.

So what's this sickness going to be like in this particular instance, then? We're so glad you asked!

You can go the standard route, of course. Adventurers' first brush with the illness saw the following afflicted upon them:

[ ♆ ] Stage One: Germination. Initial symptoms involve fever, coughing fits, numbness to nerves and extremities, and general joint stiffness. Difficulty breathing or performing other basic functions will often occur. Fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and intense weakness or dizzy spells are also liable to occur as the flowers begin to harvest nutrients from the body. This will also generate extreme thirst and periods of intense nausea. Tremors and the sensation of something "itching" from inside are also common. The end of Stage One is usually marked by the act of vomiting or coughing up flower petals or spores, along with a not-insignificant amount of blood.

[ ♆ ] Stage Two: Budding. The floral growths spread more completely inside the body, and begin to grow on the skin or exterior. Difficulty performing basic functions will increase as, for example, airways become obstructed and flowers grow around joints and pinch them still. The site of affliction also yields rashes, blisters, and blood sores as the flowers sprout from the skin. The rate of vomiting or coughing up floral growths will increase dramatically. Flowers often bloom quickly, and very painfully. Numbness in affected areas will increase, oftentimes rendering parts of the body completely inert - a pair of legs claimed completely by blooms, for example, will no longer work.

This was followed by Stage Three: Bloom, which resulted in character death. However, this strain will not advance to this style of Stage Three. All symptoms will disperse by the time Umui resurfaces.

This strain is also rather more erratic, which can make emotional repression more of an inconvenience than a horrifying circumstance. For those who would rather not play around with intense sickness (or who have already endured this once before), you have the option to go that route if you like! With this variant of the Overgrowth, one can become, for example, so embarrassed that they hiccup up a flower. A vicious denial of their feelings may cause them to spontaneously erupt into a rash of dandelion puffballs, seemingly immediately. You might end up walking around with a bouquet for an arm for a few hours. Perhaps mortifying, but certainly not fatal! Isn't that nice?

Unless, of course, you want it to be...

I Can't Fight It Much Longer

Now, while the Bloom Stage isn't present in this strain, it has mutated its progression into a rather nasty end stage. Those of you who succumb a little too readily to this illness, who don't fight off the emotional repression quickly, who don't admit those difficult truths to yourself or confess to whatever you're bottling up, you'll be faced with a potentially horrifying transformation. Potentially, because it is your choice whether or not you see fit to commit your character to that fate - as stated above, this option might simply skip over your character entirely, and the worst they'll have to deal with are cartoonishly over-the-top effects that disperse in due time.

But maybe not all of you will be so lucky. Some of you might discover for yourselves how this particular variant of the Overgrowth has mutated.

We call this mutation Stage Three: Outbreak.

In this final Stage, those beautiful blooms wither and harden into a fungus-like carapace as the illness grows into the victim's brain and shuts down virtually all higher functions. This can sometimes render them almost wholly recognizable, but not always - oftentimes, it's very obvious who this person once was. The victim is reduced to a carrier of the virus, which causes them to act the way you'd expect most viruses to act: becoming intent on spreading. Advanced brain functions such as speech, rational thought, and so on tend to shut off and become wholly inaccessible.

Now that the victim's body is no longer fighting the Overgrowth, the illness lends them increased speed, strength, and durability, making them dangerous foes indeed. They will usually seek to infect others by whatever means necessary - usually via biting or exuding breathable spores - but in some cases, they will simply reduce to base instincts, and just outright attempt to attack and kill whoever is closest.

Unfortunately, at this point, there is no hope of a cure; it's hard to make someone be emotionally honest when they're capable of little more than blunt, animal instinct. At this point, you can either wait for the Stage Three symptoms to disperse come Umui's return, or take manners into your own hands. You can probably guess what that might entail.

If you decide to put your Overgrown friends out of their misery, this will count as a character death. If it comes to that, be sure to let us know on the Deaths page! Death penalties, however, will not be reduced for this event.

Try to Get Through It

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 January's Undercurrent Event, as well as any of the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. And, of course, 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 the Questions header on our Rundown post!

January Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 1st: "This Sucks" begins and lasts until January 10th
[ ♆ ] January 3rd: "Growing Pains" begins and lasts until January 20th
[ ♆ ] January 11th: "No Water is Safe" begins and lasts until January 19th
[ ♆ ] January 20th: Umui returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] January 21st: "Impawsible Geometries" begins and lasts until January 31st

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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[At least this time, it's someone he knows and trusts. It feels a little repetitive, for all they've said to each other, but they don't have much of a choice but to rehash their troubles to stop them from eating their insides up.]

I know the feeling. I was lacking quite a bit of my own self-awareness when I arrived here. I'm... hoping it's easier this time.

[He's trying, at least. He's always trying. That's more than could really be said for him last time, when he just stayed to support everyone around him.]

It's... well, it would be easier over again. I am glad that the others I lived with are not here to catch this again, but... I miss their companionship. Lup's fire would be especially appreciated now to target these growths directly, as she did for me the last time.

We do not wish to be alone.

(Getting mad and dropping alliances with those who hurt them would hardly isolate them but ... they're a Geth.

Compared to the intimacy and vastness of the collective, they're already terribly alone.)

It's better if it stays where it can't hurt them.

[He shrugs. Or, well. He attempted to shrug and was wracked by coughs, which has resulted in the dragon being very worried and nudging at him incessantly. It wants him to get on its back, and Connor gently pushes its away.]

Cabbages got pissed about it though.

I'm not gonna walk away from this.

[He says it shortly, matter-of-fact. It doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Why should it? He's accepted this. He accepted it the first time, and he's accepting it now.]

Look, if you wanna talk, you can. I won't tell anyone whatever you need to say, or whatever. [But considering how badly he freaked out over the possibility of talking about the secrets that sit in his head, not even flowers can force those lies out of him.]

He gets pissed about a lotta shit. He's got a shorter fuse than I think he'd like.

[That's just a guess. He really doesn't know very much about Kravitz, though he's certainly less antagonistic about the principle of...everything he represents than he used to be. Partially because Tim simply can't afford to be angry all the time. Hate takes work. Does he look like he has that kind of time?]

[Neither of them have a lot of time right now. Connor's just getting worse.]

Y'know I'm not gonna judge, either way.

So you're willing to deal with whatever comes with company?

[It's as gentle as he can put it. He's not...good at gentle. The gentlest he ever gets is with Caboose, and that's only with mixed results. He's not a sensitive person, not anymore, but fuck if he doesn't want to...help, in whatever fucked-up way he can.]

[They just look so damn sad.]

[Miguel once said he was "innocent." That's not how Connor thinks of himself, really, but it's something he knows is true if you know what you're looking at. For example: as much as he pretends to be an asshole he is physically incapable of being fundamentally the same person who fed the cats under the porch because he didn't want to see them die. He's the same person who ruined the only thing that ever made him feel like he could be what his parents wanted because Miguel needed his help and it was the only thing he could offer. Because Miguel was more important than anything else, really.]

Knowing me is here [Connor draws something from his pocket, a bottle of red nail polish, and sets it on the table.] and me letting you in is here. [Another bottle, this one yellow, is set about six inches away.] Nobody's actually figured out how to get from one to the other. I usually die before they get there.

[For once, he doesn't say it like a joke. It's just stated plainly, like that's a normal reaction to someone asking you to be honest with them.]

Some people are protagonists. I'm the dead girl wrapped in plastic that only matters after I'm gone.

[You know, that one.]

Well, I hardly see that as an issue. You can't have humans knowing you exist among them, it's cause the whole bloody world to-- I dunno, mass hysteria and all that. Three hundred years is nothing. Try living on Earth for six thousand... you start to get really good at not being noticed. And telling people you hear 'you look just like your father' an awful lot.

Yes.

(The idea of being alone is ... like death, in a way. For a single program, it means reduction to a non thinking, non feeling entity. For a unit, it means reduction to a ferel and animal state.

For Legion, it is like being unable to breathe but alive in spite of it, yearning but unable to fill an aching void inside of them, forever.

They do not desire this existence.)

Thank you. [He won't call. But he'll remember this, later, when he's thinking more clearly.]

Well, yeah. That's why I tell you things.

[A flower falls to the ground from his arm. It doesn't do anything, because the truth is so small in the face of all the things he should have said that nothing would really help at this point.]

We don't have room to judge each other.

[Keith nods once,] Yeah. [He swallows and pushes past his desire to let Kravitz just say everything. It's easier for him if someone else shares too. So he does.]

Last time Shiro vanished right before we got to Umui. We'd had a conversation about how things hadn't gone the right way. He wanted me to lead the Paladins regardless of how I felt like a failure as a leader. Kept leaving that damn bayard in my bag.

[He grimaces and it is a little easier to say it this time. He isn't the young grieving leader he was. He keeps going, his voice strained but clear.] Hunk and Pidge showed up, with no knowledge of what I am and no clue of anything Lance and I knew.

Shiro vanished and I was left for three Paladins who needed a leader. A leader I didn't feel like I was.

All right.

[Well, who the hell is he to argue?]

Just...don't feel like you've got to sacrifice everything for that. Hanging around with people who treat you like shit isn't the same as having friends, and I promise that it's not worth it in the long term.

Why would you spend six thousand years on Earth?

[Rhetorical question, obviously.]

Forget Earth - all that matters right now is here. Being a demon's fine here! It's not as though most people are regular humans anyway.

[Not everything, he doesn't say. Because he carries people's secrets and he carries their lies and he'll hold all of it on his shoulders if he has to, he'll take it to his goddamn grave, but no one ever tells him everything. It's always piecemeal. He has to figure the rest out for himself.]

[But isn't that the way for everything?]

Guess not.

I know why I'm not talking. There's some stuff that you say and can't take back and I can't risk that, so...

[So he's weighed the risks. He'd rather die than doom another world, another group of people he's grown to give a shit about, to the thing that lives in his head and in his words and in his lies.]

So I'm hoping you've got a pretty good reason for it too.

... Ew! But that also sounds awesome! I mean, grave digging!

[ Sorry, Keith, that's his contribution to the topic, and he doesn't look in the least apologetic for it. ]

So you might also know the cure for it, don't you? Or... did everyone die eventually?

... You can't handle it, can you?

[ By now he can definitely determine when a person is lying because... that sort of thing happens, and it makes him frown in disapproval. Why is pretty much no one here honest about how they feel??? That would spare people so much unnecessary pain...!

He thinks, with some bitterness, that none of his brothers would have survived this. ]

You don't gotta yourself to talk, but!!! It'll definitely make you feel better of you do.

[ He frantically looks around, searching for whatever would make the shark come up again, but... silence. Ignoring the guy's rudeness, he relaxes his stance, rubbing his chin with one sleeve-covered hand. ]

You never saw sharks before? That one, though... it totally poofed! What is that supposed to mean?

[ A pause. ] Could it be... a ghost shark?!

[ The waves crash behind him at such revelation. Jyushimatsu may be right, but he said all that in the goofiest way possible. ]

[It's her.

It's her and those kind, inquisitive words are music to her ears. Of course Mira would appear. Of course she would find a way to join her on this fun adventure and the wobble dog-

Looks undisturbed, actually, as its paws torpedo into the ground, going deeper, deeper and deeper and the mud covered Ren-

Tries to reign in her excitement at Mira's appearance. Her happiness. He joy that this girl's back by her side again, after what feels like forever. She smiles brightly and holds up some nasty mud in the palm of her hands.]

Yes, there are rocks in here. You can keep some too, Mira.

…Like, I’m not saying Shiro has an answer, but.....maybe you guys might have some understanding the rest of us don’t.

[The next comment makes him pause. Keith has just said that he felt cut off from others. That he might never belong….? Feeling lost and out of place isn’t a feeling that’s unfamiliar to Zidane, even though it’s probably for different reasons.

Feeling alone, that others won’t understand you. And that you can’t really talk to them because of that. It’s a sensation he’s very familiar with. He would keep silent about this and leave it out of what he was going to say. But then his blood on the ground catches his eye.]

Dammit, can't catch a break in this place, huh.

[Maybe he has to give his perspective after all. If it helps Keith as well though.......]

………You know, belonging doesn’t have to mean being part of a society or a group of people. Heck, it might just be even one person. [And he pauses to take as deep a breath as he can before...] But, uh....I thought the same thing too, once. About myself.

Edited 2020-01-18 00:38 (UTC)

I die either way.

[There's a more complicated explanation, one that he probably wouldn't explain fully even if he could, but that's enough of an explanation. It's either he lets everyone try and then they'll think he was just being stubborn or he says something and then it sets something off in his dumpster fire of a brain and he's dead anyway. Then they'll feel guilty.]

They tried. No sunsets.

[Belatedly, he realizes that Tim probably doesn't know what "no sunsets" is supposed to mean. He's pretty sure he never told Tim about sunsets, but he's out of breath to explain a concept that's so integral to his being.

Well. It's not the first time he's said something incomprehensible. It won't be the last.]

[Zidane's instinct is to insist it's not that bad but then.....he needs to find out about this illness as much as he can. And who else has got it.

He dreads what he's going to find out. But he has to. He manages to pull himself up and look composed but there's still confusion and fear in his eyes.]

I....don't know.

I haven't been feeling great for the past few days so I thought I'd go to the clinic and uh.....[He doesn't say more. Tim can guess what happened.]

[There's nothing she can do about the loss of the kids. His family isn't around, as far as she knows, and searching for them seems like it would cause more hurt. They'll come back-they promised. Especially for Tim, who even now wishes they were real.

She stops her incessant tapping, slowly wrapping her fingers around his hand instead. She'll let him pull away, if he wants. He doesn't usually like to do this but-

She's hoping he might feel it. That she's real because this disease plays tricks on the mind and she can't watch him succumb to it again.]

I found my way back. That's what happened.

[In some roundabout way that she can't recall, she's sure that's what occurred.]

You should go inside. I'll help you.

[They reach out to her and she's nervous, for a second. They're not upset-their own hand outstretches to meet hers and she holds waits, hesitates and then gently brushes her own fingertips back against theirs.]

Yes, I didn't mean to leave. I'm not a ghost.

(Geth do not feel physical pain, but that does not mean Legion is unfamiliar with torture.

They just don't ever talk about their experiences, or the horror of being forcibly used by a being beyond comprehension.

They are also not unfamiliar with what had occurred with the Alpha AI, but hearing the story of a Human harmed as a result of it and encountering the AI himself is ... different.

...They don't know how to respond, or what to say.

Finally, they try: )

You are a Human being, regardless of your synthetic origin: your mind, feelings, and perspective are Human in nature.

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Page 19 of 61

January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

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Cw: blood, body horror, ptsd descriptions

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CW brief allusion to particularly awful torture trauma