March Undercurrent: Lost Connections

[lifeaftr_mods]

MARCH UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: We remember those lost, and connect with one another
When: March 3rd to March 19th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: Please mark anything as it comes up!

From Stardust to God

Those months since the Water's introduction to you all have been...tumultuous, haven't they? These two gods have more or less been trying to consistently undermine each other, and you all have been caught in the middle of it - whether or not you wanted to be! Kind of a miserable state of being to be stuck in, right?

All that is going to change.

For the duration of this particular month, both the Storyteller and the Water will be operating under a tentative ceasefire as they commit their efforts to one singular, joint goal:

They wish to remember those who have been lost. Those who have left the archipelago, those who have died, those who have come and gone, those who you lost in your homes...and these gods will be, also, commemorating those who they have lost. This commemoration will be facilitated with the use of memorials and offerings to those long past.

The Storyteller will provide you with materials to craft paper lanterns that can be illuminated and sent sailing into the ocean waters. They can be decorated with colorful paper, cut designs, and so forth. The Water will guide the currents to allow the lanterns to drift to...wherever it is they need to go. You can send as many lanterns as you like, and as many nights as you like. The skies will always be clear, and the water will always guide them to the horizon, where they eventually fade from view...

Both the Storyteller and the Water will be available for discussion for the duration of this event.

The Highs We Trade for the Lows

This month isn't only about remembering what's been past. To conjure Ai'tuoh back to the archipelago, it will also entail that all of you do some reflecting on what has been lost in your lives, and sharing in that pain together. This may be a somber month for some of you, or it may be an introspective one.

At any point during this event, your character may wake to discover that one or more thin threads of colorful light appears to be emanating from their chest and trailing through the empty air. These threads cannot be removed or influenced in any fashion; attempting to grab at them will simply cause one's hands to phase uselessly through them, as though they are ethereal constructs of some sort.

The purpose of these strands of light might not immediately be apparent, but if you spend enough time observing your fellow islanders, it might get a bit clearer. Each tether connects you to someone else - someone who has a pain similar to your own. Should you follow your tether to whoever it has linked you to, you may find yourself compelled to comfort or relate to the other party. This compulsion can honestly vary, from a gentle nudge to a sudden impulse and anything in between. There may or may not be a subtle pressure on your thoughts that may help you discern what you might have in common with this other person, whoever they might be. This facet of this event is completely opt-in, naturally, and we encourage you to interpret this however you like. What counts as shared pain? It can be as literal or as figurative as you like. Whether characters underwent the same events in this game or another, or whether there are certain parallels you wish to explore within certain canons or across multiple ones...or if you just want your character to have a nice sit down and talk about their problems for once, the choice is yours. Your character can be connected to as many others as you like - there is no limit to how many characters you can share any related trauma with!

Should you choose to reflect on that which you have endured, and the shared pain of others, what follows is fairly intuitive. The tether binding you together will fade, though hopefully a stronger bond will be forged, and ideally you'll all feel better afterward...but that's not necessarily a given, now, is it?

This is No Place Like Home

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 February'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 Monthly Rundown post!

March Timeline

[ ♆ ] March 1st: "The Return of Your Special Lifting Friend" begins and lasts until March 10th
[ ♆ ] March 3rd: "Lost Connections" begins and lasts until March 19th
[ ♆ ] March 12th: "Spring Forth" begins and lasts until March 21st
[ ♆ ] March 20th: Ai'tuoh returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] March 22nd: "The Happy Hang Glider Vacation Society" begins and lasts until March 31st

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[thankgods]

Your lives are significantly less generation-spanning than those of gods. And this is not your world. You have been displaced from space and time, and thus it is easier for a god to...do as the Storyteller does.

I suppose that in a way, you are correct. Their stories are over. Now they live an endless epilogue.

[motherfucking_ghost]

But there could be so much more! [He's annoyed at his own outburst as soon as he says it. Yes, of course people could have more story. But they all end. Everyone and everything dies--eventually. There's nothing fair about it. It just is. Suck it up.]

Just...instead of...epilogue. Or living an epilogue. Living in one, even. Or maybe that's just me, whatever. [He waves off the morbid thought. This is his epilogue. For however long it lasts.] Whatever. Look, while this is going on, you and Storyteller are both doing the mourning thing and that's...real nice of you guys, but, it makes me wonder--I mean, I'm just curious. [Because abrupt changes of topic are good when one doesn't want to think about deep things.]

What's up with you two? Like, why don't you seem to get along in the first place?

[thankgods]

[A good question. They allow for the shift in subject - it seems to be what Church would prefer.]

We disagree on many accounts. On the nature of this world, and its eventual fate. Whether it should have ever come to be. I find their persistence in maintaining it to be profoundly selfish. They are prolonging that which is inevitable.

[motherfucking_ghost]

...So this is a dead or dying world that's only existing because Peter Rabbit wills it so? Like, yeah, self-preservation is a thing, but--well, like, what if this place could be revived? There are islands, there are creatures, there's plants.

There's also a lot of really fucked up shit like 'talk about your secrets or die' disease, or infectious rock monsters, or places where the memories of the dead are so strong that they infect you. But no place is perfect.

[thankgods]

This world is dead.

[The Water says with a rippling sigh, shivers of water running off along the spines of their serpentine shape.]

There is no bringing it back from that calamity. It is true that some creatures have prospered, despite all adversity...but how long would they hope to last? This world cannot perpetuate indefinitely. And nor can its residents.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Why not?

I mean, what if you and the Storyteller just fucked off and were just hands-off about it, and let the critters--not even us guys, just the stuff that already exists here--prosper where they are? Places have food, water, they've adapted to their bits of islands they call home. A calamity might've happened, but this place is hardly dead.

[thankgods]

You underestimate just how much effort the Storyteller must expend daily, merely to keep things as they are. Why do you think they could only manage to raise a handful of islands at a time?

[Not to mention those times that the water level rose - for without the Storyteller's care, they would surely continue to rise, and swallow everything.]

It is easier with me here, as I am the Water, and those islands would frequent my domain exclusively without my express intervention.

They are tired. I am tired.

We were not meant to survive for as long as we did, and we are paying the price for it.

[motherfucking_ghost]

So...you're kinda fighting cuz they think they can singlehandedly save the world, and you're just here to...keep it all from exploding catastrophically in their face. And ours.

...What would happen if you both just stopped? To the world, and to us?

[thankgods]

I imagine that it all would simply fade away. Yourselves included.

[Solemn words, but the Water is, as much as they are capable, sincere. They believe the sentiment wholeheartedly.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Fade--like a dream?

[That doesn't sound so bad.]

Like a story?

[...Wait he doesn't like the implications of that--]

[thankgods]

Like a little of both, perhaps. I am...not sure. I witnessed the end of one world, but that was a fiery cataclysm that was the result of...simple entropy.

This world was an anomaly to begin with. I suspect that if it were to end, its dissolution would be similarly aberrant.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Wait, you've existed on other worlds? Or did you just exist somewhere, it ended, and you got pulled here, just like the rest of us?

[thankgods]

The latter.

The world that this one...emulates, for lack of a better term. Our world was not an island. This one is mere...fragments. Mere pieces, pulled together into a shadow of what they were.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Bits and pieces of what the original world used to be. This is just a...dream, a simulation of sorts, memories of a world already dead and doomed.

That's, uh. [He's just gonna...sit. He's just gonna sit and try very hard not to shake.] That's real fucked up. Have you told Bugs Bunny that's fucked up? I feel like, uh, like maybe you two need to have a sit-down, a confab, a-a-an intervention, maybe someone here's gotta moderate.

[thankgods]

Believe me, they are well aware.

[The Water's tone becomes something icy - not directed at him, but rather a bitterness aimed directly at the Storyteller.]

Why do you think that they and I have been so at odds?

[motherfucking_ghost]

But they can't stop?

They won't stop?

Is--is this--do they really think they can bring back something dead, make it better this time--

[mmmmmBOY that is a dangerous mental path to go down]

Wait, okay, so. They also existed, back on the original version? So...how did they survive the entropic death of a world enough to make a copy in the first place?

[thankgods]

They had help. I'm sure of it. They and their friends...the god of dreams, certainly, it was their doing that allowed Mu to exist as it is. Mu was their conduit...their way of passing pieces of one world to another.

I am not sure they think they can change things. I think they simply refuse to let them die.

[motherfucking_ghost]

God of dreams... Is it--huh. Is it possible to talk to them? Or do you have to like...be in Mu, you think?

[thankgods]

I doubt it. They are quite dead. Hence why I suspect that land is so difficult for the Storyteller to control.

It is not really theirs.

[motherfucking_ghost]

But it does still exist. Even without anyone to run it, in a way.

[thankgods]

For now.

Like so many things, it cannot sustain itself indefinitely.

[motherfucking_ghost]

So it...and all of this...it's all gonna unravel. Eventually. Either just from...from sheer entropic force, right, or from the Energizer Bunny shaking itself to pieces.

[thankgods]

Succinctly put, yes. Sheer entropic force would be a good way to put it.

I think the end is coming sooner than any of us expected.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Oh...oh. Shit. It's already started? It's--are we going to just stop existing?

[thankgods]

It has been happening for a long while. Long before any of you came.

[The tone is gentle; it's possible that these words are meant to be reassuring.]

I wish I could say I know. But I do not.

I don't know what will happen to any of you.