April Undercurrent: Breaking Barriers

[lifeaftr_mods]

APRIL UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Normal boundaries are made malleable, for a time
When: April 3rd to April 19th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: Please mark anything as it comes up!

Keep Me In Your Clouded Mind

As days pass, and the Water begins to exert their pull, your surroundings will begin to grow hazy, almost dreamlike. Though some might find this sensation to be unpleasant, the feeling will soon pass, and the world will seemingly right itself. Perhaps a fit of vertigo, and nothing more...?

But come the morning of April 3rd, the island's skies and seas will paint themselves anew in faded guises - every colour it's possible for a sky and sea to be, from sunrise to sunset - bleeding into each other like ink in water, until the horizon vanishes. And from that vanishing point, where sky and sea meet, you will begin to see...rafts. Rafts bearing familiar paper lanterns - some crumpled, some stained from their crash into the water, but recognizable all the same.

Remember those lanterns that you made last month? It turns out that they've actually served as beacons. And, as those rafts drift closer, you might find that the lights you set free, forged in your grief and longing, have managed to guide the subjects of that longing to you...at least for a time. Of course, it's not all people you know. Those on the rafts are just as likely to be strangers, people who have simply drifted in on the tides of dream. Or they may be both familiar and not - the people you knew, who have changed in your absence or theirs.

They might even be you, though not as the island has made you. Perhaps they're the person you once were, or the person you will be. Who knows what the tides may bring?

To distinguish such temporary visitors from those making a more permanent stay, those brought in by these strange waters often look faded or filled with an ethereal light. They may also have a strange translucency to them, though this will not affect their ability for physical contact, interaction, or their solidity.

This month, no special tasks are required of you other than to interact with these new visitors, whether they bring you joy, grief, or the mutual, fleeting bond of a first meeting. The more you accept them as part of your lives - temporary as they are - the more power you produce.

Their stay might be short, but their impact is no lesser, and recognition of that is necessary to pave the way for Elytlan's arrival.

---

♆ FOURTH WALL EVENT ♆

We'd like to welcome anyone and everyone to LifeAftr's Fourth Wall Event! We'd like to start things off with a few points of clarification, if necessary:

[ ♆ ] This is an IC event. All characters will remember the fourth wall event and any characters that pass through it.

[ ♆ ] You are free to enable and post with absolutely anyone! For this event only, all rules regarding doubles and duplicates are to be considered null and void. Doubles, CRAUs, player-made AUs, original characters, whoever you like who can be brought to interact with the islands is free to do so! Characters who might be re-visiting from their past experiences in LifeAftr can recall as much or as little of their time in game as you like.

[ ♆ ] Please be aware that visiting characters will likely notice that their powers have been slightly or greatly dampened. While they will probably still be capable of smaller or more ordinary things, any game-breaking or world-ending powers will have no effect on these shores. You are free to nerf them even more if you want, though! We certainly won't stop you.

[ ♆ ] Only members of LifeAftr will have posting access, but all characters and players outside of the game are welcome to comment anywhere in this log, unless a player wishes to opt out of the event entirely.

[ ♆ ] This does include posting to the network, over at lifenet! Newly arriving characters will have access to the Stones of Farspeech that enable long-distance communication, but they will not be able to make their own posts - only comment to the posts of others.

[ ♆ ] We ask that any visitors be mindful of our game rules. Most characters will likely be arriving on the island of Ensō or the islets just off of its coast - feel free to read up on those pages for more information, and don't be afraid to ask questions!

[ ♆ ] This event will only last up until April 19th. At that point, all characters who have been brought to the Fourth Wall event and are not currently in game will fade away. Due to the ethereal quality to them while on the islands, the temporary nature of their stay will likely be apparent. That being said, this log will remain open once the event itself is complete - backtagging is both welcome and encouraged.

[ ♆ ] As the game will be entering endgame shortly after this event, we will not be opening Applications after the event unless you are a returning player who would like to be present for endgame.

[ ♆ ] If anyone has any questions about this event, please ask them HERE!

Color in My Sheltered Mind

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 April'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!

April Timeline

[ ♆ ] April 1st: "Make Libations" begins and lasts until April 10th
[ ♆ ] April 3rd: "Breaking Barriers" begins and lasts until April 19th
[ ♆ ] April 12th: "Isn't It Dreamy?" begins and lasts until April 21st
[ ♆ ] April 20th: Elytlan arrives at the archipelago
[ ♆ ] April 22nd: "Got Your Goat" begins and lasts until March 31st

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[schoollifecub]

[ Her expression immediately brightens, but her brows are still furrowed a bit, in obvious confusion. ]

Uh, yeah, duh! Who the heck else would I be?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Uhhhhh some rando? You uh. You're taller. By like a lot?

Ohhhhhh my god, really, more temporal shenanigans? As if life wasn't already so god damn weird enough! And I can say this shit because I haven't seen Yuyu around, so she can't make me fear the cold embrace of death for cursing in front of you!

Choice.

[schoollifecub]

[ See Ruu frown. See Ruu mouth the words 'temporal shenanigans' to herself. See Ruu absolutely, positively, unequivocally Not Get It. ]

Wait. Is this... a time travel thing? Oh my god, do you still remember me being like, a baby?

[ "nine years old" = "baby" ]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Just a little thing! Yea high! [He puts his hand up to an approximation of where his current remembrance of Ruu is. Tiny.] Lookit you, all growing up! How old are you now? What's Yuuri doing now? How are your grades? How is Junpei still alive? Do me and Ardy still have a thriving bird-raising business? How many youtube followers do I have?

[The important questions!]

[schoollifecub]

What the heck! I was barely even a real person. That's crazy.

[ She drums her hands all excitedly on the table. ]

C'mon, c'mon, sit down! I'll tell you everything! Um, in order–

[ She starts counting off on her fingers. ]

I'm sixteen now and Nee-chan's running a flower shop in Tokyo, it was supposed to get started a few years ago but she took a couple years off 'cause–

[ There's a beat here and she gives him what I can only describe as a knifecat face. ]

Because spoilers. I'll come back to the spoilers. The spoilers are a surprise. Anyway – um, I guess they're okay? I mean, I don't really know yet mostly just because I just started high school so I haven't gotten a lot of homework back yet. But I got into my first choice school! So that's pretty good!

[ Her uniform does have a distinctly Classy School Aura about it. ]

Nii-san's still alive 'cause Nee-chan would kill him if he died, you guys are still doing the crazy cat lady thing with the birds and you have like four more of them now and um, last I checked it was like five hundred thousand or something? We play Minecraft on it sometimes with Nii-san and people make remixes out of all your swears.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

[You bet your fluffy bear ears he'll come over and downright chinhands on the table because tell him all the forbidden future knowledge! What, like this place between worlds is gonna explode? Please.]

Awwww yeah, that's the kinda fandom I like. I probably still suck at Minecraft, but...I mean, that's, uh, half of what people like about it anyway. And look at you! High school! Do your homework, don't spend all your time socializing, insert more well-meaning adult knowledge here! But like, also go do fun shit. But save the really fun and dangerous and questionable things for college. [leonard] Because in theory you'll be too far away for Yuuri to throw shoes at you. [church]

And I can't beLIEVE you're spoilers-ing me. You tease. You Wakasas are menaces, you know that? To your family more than society.

[schoollifecub]

Don't get my hopes up like that, though! Do you seriously think she wouldn't just get me anyway? I'd agree to do something dumb and dangerous and I'd be fifty miles away from home and I'd turn around and she'd be right there. You know she would be.

[ She wants to LIVE to see college, Church. ]

Hey, hey, the spoilers are exciting! I just, uh, need to know exactly when it is for you? 'cause then I'll actually know if it's a spoiler or not. I'm getting my years mixed up. What sorta stuff's happened for you guys so far?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

See, now I'm worried. You say things like that and I get worried. The chocobos are allowed inside because I've finally given up and lost control of my life, but they are not allowed in the bedroom. I still haven't told my youtube followers that the hilarious tall guy I'm rooming with is my husband, but it's, y'know, a matter of time. Yuyu's still doing the college thing. You're so small. Oh wait, you're so small now.

[schoollifecub]

You should be. The chocobos are going places.

[ Is this true? Is she making this up specifically to stress Church out??? Impossible to tell, both of these options are equally likely. ]

Okay... so you're way, way far back. So this is definitely still a surprise.

[ She grins gleefully and then scoots her chair in even further so she can lean across the table, like this is a state secret she's sharing. ]

So, like, I don't know if it's happened yet, but a little while before she finished college, Nee-san started doing some part time stuff at a flower shop in Tokyo that this really nice old lady owned – it was kind of like, an experience thing? 'cause she knows her flowers, but she's never done any kind of business stuff, so she wanted to see what it was like. And she was uh, really good at it? I think she ended up helping a lot with managing the store basically right away. This lady was really old and she needed basically all the help she can get.

Anyway, um, a little while after she finished college, the old owner– I think she had a fall and... she didn't break anything, but her family got really fussy about it and they wanted her to move back home, so she asked Nee-san if she was interested in taking over the shop, permanently. I think they were technically buying the whole shop, but it was basically for pennies, she just didn't want the business anymore.

So, they got all this stuff worked out and she figured she could do really good business at a way lower cost than basically anywhere else in Tokyo, 'cause with the Armiger and stuff and the ranch, they cut out pretty much all of the outgoing costs that'd usually go to suppliers and stuff. And they were set to open things up for a trial run or something, but then. Nee-san had to take, um, I think it was a year and a couple months off.

[ Ah, the knifecat smile is back. She's already leaning in but now she's basically halfway across the table, purely for The Drama of it. ]

For maternity leave.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

[There's a lot to take in, like, there's plenty of information and exciting stuff to process, but.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!

He is silent and still and his mouth is hanging open. Maternity leave! Maternity! Give him a couple seconds here that's a word, a big word, a big word needs thought about!

He is a manly man who does not squeal, not at all, and the sound that escapes him? Definitely manly. Just like the manly way he grabs Ruu's hands and just kinda. shakes them! With excitement! Because it's manly to be excited and make very manly noises.]

Oh my godddddd!

[Super manly.]

You're Auntie Ruu!

[Leggie kicking: also manly.]

I can't even imagine Jumpy as a father, that's terrifying! That kiddo's got so many godparents and aunts and uncles and then there's Ardyn, whatever the fuck he is anymore in this family entanglement!

Mama Yuyu!

[schoollifecub]

I knowwww!

[ This is old news by about six years for her by now, but seeing Church getting all hyped up about it has her giddy too. And why not!! It's exciting news!! ]

She's sooooo cute and tiny, 'cause she's only like, five. Her name's Haruka! I guess they had to give her a normal sounding name to make up for "Tenmyouji", huh?

[ r u d e ]

I don't think she one hundred percent gets that I'm technically her aunt, 'cause – obviously, I don't call Nee-san "Mom" or anything, 'cause that'd be weird. But Haruka calls her Mama and she calls me "onee-chan", so I think in her head, she just thinks we're sisters? Which is basically the case, so no one's really bothered to sit down and explain it all yet.