January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

[lifeaftr_mods]

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 )

Comments

[ichininyaanshi]

[He's been okay so far. He's been holding it together, as best as someone as fragile as Ichimatsu can. Wanting to be strong for his younger siblings one of the few, actual honest parts of him - he has a little bit of that older brother pride, they all do, even if they act like it doesn't mean anything. For Jyushimatsu and Todomatsu... he always tries a little harder.]

[But he's run out of rope.]

[He bites his lip hard, and that makes his next shuddering breath less obnoxiously loud than it could be, but the sound of his voice choking up in a sob is unmistakable. It's so damn embarrassing. Having to confide in and be strong for the same person... this is more painful than he'd even imagined it would be. He really did just take the easy way out last time.]

[But he's not finished. For Jyushimatsu's sake, he reminds himself, pushing off the instinct to wipe his tears and letting them drip and tangle into his brother's hair. He has to show his brother that he's trying... and even more importantly, he has to prove Jyushimatsu right. Show him that he's doing the right thing. Even if Ichimatsu is resisting him.]

[That's why he's bringing up Karamatsu again. All three of them, from back then. Because....]

Back then... you and me were the liars. Right? We were so full of bullshit. But Shi- ... Karamatsu was honest. A crybaby who was way too timid to do anything, b-but that was just... how he was.

[The way he still is, underneath all that glitter.]

I'm still the same way as ever. But now Karamatsu is a liar, too. You're the only one who turned into someone honest, Jyushimatsu. I - I look at all of those idiot older brothers, and they're all hopeless, but whenever I think about how you started being yourself like it was so easy...

[He trails off. Squeezes his brother's hand again; hard, this time.]

... I hate it. 'Cause... i-it makes me want to try, too.

[yakyuuman]

[ He would sell away all of his love for baseball if only he could forget the shame that was his high school life. After thinking he could get anything in life by acting like a delinquent, and failing spectacularly at it. Ichimatsu bringing it back bears a weight in his stomach, most of which is undiluited embarrassment.

His brother was right - the both of them were liars, believing that they could be something they were not designed to be. It wasn't part of them at all. Jyushimatsu liked laughing more than growling like a feral dog to random passerbys and letting his pants loose to show some superiority he didn't have, literally flashing his ass to everyone. He wanted to cringe hard at the memory.

But eventually they both changed. It's just that Ichimatsu didn't become fully honest and genuine, trapping himself in denial and putting up the front of a borderline criminal surrounded by darkness when in reality he just wants to hang out with cats and get some friends.

The friends part seems to be a little settled thanks to Ren and some other people here, but it's clear that's not enough. Ichimatsu caught the sickness, which means a lot of work still has to be done.

He takes the clear hint behind those last words. Ichimatsu wants to try. With that information now available, Jyushimatsu slowly pulls away, keeping their hands joined but now looking at Ichimatsu in the eye. They're both tearing up, but there's a shine of determination in Jyushimatsu's gaze. ]

You should try, for your own sake! Nii-san, I... you have no idea how liberating it is to just be myself and not put up a front! How great it feels when I laugh and disregard the laws of the universe cuz I'd rather do what I want! It's hard and it can be embarrassing, but you're gonna feel so much better after that!

It gets easier.

[ He nods to himself, and holds up Ichimatsu's hand in both his own. ]

How about that?