A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

[savmods]

Who: Anyone and Everyone
When: December 19 onwards
Where: Avagi... and beyond?
What: Your past, someone's present, and potential futures.
Warnings: Body horror and an associated image in the second part. Otherwise, label your content.

While the Ingress may have been destroyed, the energy powering it remains alive and well. The residents of Avagi know this intimately: from their own arrivals, from the portals that have appeared, and the short-lived changes (as well as longer-lived possessions) that have cluttered the station over the last few months. Recently, whatever force is manipulating this has even gone so far as to revive the dead—demonstrating, perhaps, an unwillingness to relinquish those it has brought to this place. To say this entity is seasonal would probably be a mistake. In the heart of Avagi's storms, there are no stars to mark the seasons, much less connect them to a certain planet's holidays—or the literature thereon. Still, from luck or from intention, the current fluctuations comes with a certain theme...

Past

It starts at the turn of the station clock's midnight. Flickers at the edge of one's vision. Indistinct whispers, ghosting through walls and down corridors. Those who are sleeping will be untroubled, but the wakeful and wary can watch the light build: from flickers to pulses, from pulses to pools. Over several hours, silver mist fills rooms and corridors, varying from a thin veil to dense, obscuring fog. If you step into the mist, you'll feel a sense of displacement; of sound and color, energy and a shift of life. Ingress travel. Except... not quite. Shortly after entering the mist, you'll find yourself free of disorientation and apparently free of physical form, unable to interact with your surroundings. As a quasi-ghost, you've been transported to somewhere and somewhen—a location from the past, back on a world of someone’s origin or from any place you've been since first arriving through the Ingress. While these experiences can vary wildly, some things remain consistent: The past matters: These visits to the past are not repeats of idle afternoons—each has emotional significance to someone currently on Avagi. The past cannot be changed: As real as any given scenario seems, you're fundamentally incapable of altering it. The past event will play out as it did in real life and dissipate when it reaches an ending. Trying has consequences: Attempting too hard to interfere increases the emotional significance, and will consequently draw onlookers further into the scene. You may find yourself anchored to any participant in the scene: first physically (experiencing the scene through their eyes) and then emotionally (experiencing their emotions and thoughts). If drawn in too deeply, you may lose track of your own nature during the experience, drowning in the sense of being someone else.. You are not alone: While immersed in a scene, you'll see nothing but the history playing out. However, at the its conclusion, the fog will once again displace the world around. As it melts away, you'll find themselves back in Avagi's halls—and face to face with whoever else was also viewing that piece of the past.

Present

Whether through one memory or several, eventually, the fog disperses. Only a faint mist remains, gathered in corners of the station's halls. It's simple enough to avoid, and nothing obstructs efforts to return to your rooms, your friends, or any other destination. Nothing, that is, except finding them. The layout of the halls has shifted. The clutter you so painstakingly cleared is back. The GPS on your ACE mistakenly reports that you are floating off in space far outside the station, and any efforts to locate or call your companions results in glitchy static. Something is interfering with your calls—more effectively than the distance between worlds. Inference and intuition are all you have to put together the pieces. The layout has changed, but the construction stayed the same. You're still on the former Ingress station. But not the same area that you called home. This is a different section of Avagi. An inhabited one. Dank, warm air pulses in and out of the vents in odd rhythms. Water damage stains the walls, and some seep dark liquid. There's an odd symphony in the distance: four notes, hummed to a pattern that buzzes in the back of your head. It's possible to wait it out. But if you do explore, you might come across your friends. And together, you might find the source. Further in, a wall of flesh fills the pathways, rising and falling with intermittent, massive draws of air. A fluid wash of features glues it to the bulkheads. Claws and eyes, hands and faces: half-made bodies shifting in and out of recognition with each pulse of breath. And always with the same gold glow beneath the skin. It's a familiar shade, to those who witnessed Thisavrou's destruction. It's the being who destroyed it. Those who flee will escape her notice. Those who wait may watch in secret for a time. Mother's focus seems to be elsewhere...or, perhaps, something else is hiding your presence here from her. Any attack on Mother's flesh shape, or any overt effort to draw her attention, will meet violent, immediate reprisal. You'll experience an immobilizing psychic force before the flesh consumes you. But whether you hide or fight or run, your time on this section of the station will end in the same way: a burst of brilliant, clear light providing transport back home.

Future

You flash back to reality amidst a burst of light—but this time, you recognize your surroundings. You have returned to the Avagi you know, and the silver mist that filled the halls has cleared. Over the next few days, most of Avagi will settle back into a state of normalcy. The ACEs are working properly, and station residents will have all the time they need to compare notes on their experiences—and, perhaps, on any plans to act on what they've learned. Avagi is not as empty as it seemed. And one place in particular will remain changed in the wake of the event. The Ingress Memorial, once inactive, has come to life, emitting a swirl of silver light that shifts and flickers, like the light of the portal it once contained. For the next five days, it will offer a vision to anyone approaching it: a single, brief scene from their potential future. Players have the following options: Canon future: Your character catches a glimpse of their future if they were to return from Avagi to their own world. This consists of a canon event. Avagi future: Your character catches a glimpse of their own future on Avagi. This can be a short-term future (i.e. an actual vision of a future scene you plan to play out), or a potential longer-term one in which they stayed on Avagi for months or years. Storm future: Your character catches a glimpse of themselves as a Mirtos—a desiccated husk and incarnation of the storm's hunger. As seen in Thisavrou's destruction, these creatures are carried by the storms and destroy all they come across. The visions can observed by any present when the Memorial is approached. And while the past is fixed, the future is always capable of being altered. What will you do regarding yours?

---

[OOC: Check out the OOC post for more information!]

Comments

[clussy]

(It is one of those strange memories that Eddie wants nothing to do with, yet never wants to forget. That entire day had been a culmination of physical and mental warfare and had left Eddie strung out. Except it had, in a very strange way, freed Eddie. At least until he had originally lost his memories when he first arrived in Avagi.

When he opens his eyes and sees who's staring back at him, Eddie feels very strange. He feels a little disoriented from the experience, but more than that, he almost feels guilty. He remembers Calla easily. The nine-year old program. For the first time Eddie realizes why some adults maybe wanted to shelter kids from things.

Calla didn't need to see that kind of thing.

The man's (child's?) expression makes his stomach churn, and his hands net together.)

The big boys? (Eddie means boys slightly older, slightly bigger, but still children.)

...Not...all of them. But a lot of them. (Not that Eddie's really met any bigger boys who were all that nice.)

That was...Henry Bowers. He's...He's really messed up in the head. I'm sorry. That you had to see that. Are you okay?

(Even though Eddie was the one who had gone through it, he wanted to make sure.)

[callamities]

[Calla hadn’t only meant the bigger boys. He isn’t sure what he meant—children? Humans? He’s known for a long while that Creators don’t live up to their promises, but even by Calla’s low standards, what he had seen was appalling.

The apology comes as a surprise, as does the concern. As much as the memory had disturbed him, he imagines it would be worse for the one who had actually lived through it.] I’m fine, thank you. I just… didn’t know Creators treated each other like that.

[The worst he’d seen in the Gardens was the occasional bar fight between adults and those usually involved people under heavy influence. He remembers the fear in the adult Creator’s eyes, how helpless he had been to stop it.]

I’ve never seen Creators that afraid of each other.

[clussy]

(For Eddie, it went without saying that adults were disappointing in their own way. The adults in Derry were particularly bad. Though it hadn't seemed like too many people wanted to believe just how badly. Not that Calla had ever been one of those people.

Humans in general were...

A lot to understand. It was worse for Eddie, in a way, but that memory had more than just a broken arm to it. It had Eddie's salvation, in a very weird way.)

...Yeah. (Eddie's eyes sweep down, and he fusses with his fingers, trying to think of how to explain it.)

Where I come from, I'm seen as pretty different. And people in my world really don't like 'different'. Different gets you treated like that. (Not always, but it's been Eddie's life for long enough that he says it with a certain finality.)

I'm kind of a loser. (Is what he's getting at.) So are my friends. That's why we stick together though.

(Eddie stares up at Calla then, his expression growing tense.)

...Henry Bowers...he's not...completely normal. The other guys are total assholes too, but Henry's....Something's real messed up with him. (Eddie points to his own head.) In here. He's fucked up. And he wants to hurt people if he can. And animals.

[callamities]

[It makes Calla feel ignorant, how shocked he is to hear about such things. To him, Creators have always been an undivided whole, united by their power. The thought that they would force each other into a powerless position is… well, not entirely unheard of, he supposes. Calla was pre-programmed with enough historical knowledge to know that Creators had once used all sorts of superficial differences to justify abusing one another, but he had always believed that such behavior was a relic of the past—at least on Earth, it was.]

I don’t think you’re a loser, [Calla says.] I mean, you’re still a Creator. [By which he means, not the lowest in the hierarchy. It takes him a moment to remember that Eddie’s world doesn’t have Created as a reference point and thus such a distinction wouldn’t be very reassuring. He tries again.]

If it means anything, I think I’d much rather spend a day with you and your friends than with Henry Bowers and his. And I can’t imagine anyone else making a different choice.

[A pause, and then Calla adds with a slight smile:] Plus, in my world, Henry Bowers would probably end up in prison. So there’s that.

[Surely being incarcerated would make Henry Bowers the bigger loser in this scenario.]

[clussy]

(Maybe it was ignorant. But maybe it was a good kind of ignorant. No one should have to know about cruelty. It didn't make anyone a better person for it, except maybe to invoke their sympathy. But that's why stories existed. Fake stories where you knew everything would be okay in the end. Not memories of children getting their bodies ripped and broken.)

That doesn't mean too much where we come from. (We as in Eddie and his friends. There was just people back home. Well, people and It. But Calla seems to correct himself, and the second attempt works better. For Eddie, he had accepted himself as a loser a long time ago.

It mattered more when people saw that and still wanted to be his friend. Like Calla.

It makes him smile, even if it's a little shy, and honestly, it makes him feel real good.)

You think?

(Maybe Calla was right. He doesn't think too many people on Avagi would choose differently either. It lifts his shoulders up.) My friends are pretty awesome.

(Really awesome.)

Yeah, well my world is stupid sometimes. (Eddie was maybe insensitive towards the matter, but it was hard to want Henry to get mental help when he was as cruel as he was. Wasn't there some people out there not worth trying for?)

Are people not mean like that in your world? (Calla's surprise suggested that, anyway, but Eddie didn't want to assume. After all, he was only nine.)

[callamities]

[It seems like an obvious assessment to Calla. Who would prefer the company of a violent gang led by a psychopath to that of a good-natured boy and his friends?] Of course.

[Calla has felt that many of the worlds he’s visited since leaving Earth have been stupid. They’re so full of oversights and chaos, so unlike the well-ordered world he once knew.

Not that that means his Earth was without cruelty. Far from it, really. Calla hesitates, wondering how he should answer such a question. His Earth certainly didn’t have roving bands of bloodthirsty young men roving about and yet neither was it the kindly utopia it purported itself to be—not that it would be safe to go into much detail there.]

Not to each other, no, [Calla says after a moment. Not to other “people.”] Sometimes they get into fights, but usually nothing too serious. Definitely not as bad as… that. [They had always looked serious to him, but then, any violence did to someone who wasn’t capable of it himself. After leaving Earth, though, Calla has seen true violence. Eddie's experience is only one such example, though perhaps the most shocking. The little flare-ups Calla saw in the Gardens hardly compared.]

[clussy]

(One would think. Of course, for many residents of Derry, it was not a matter of choosing between the two. It was a matter of sneering at one group, and ignoring the other. No one cared about the Losers.

Calla wasn't wrong. Though the problem with Derry maybe wasn't so much stupidity as it was an inherent wrongness in its foundation. Derry was a town that at its core sat an immense sort of evil. That wasn't so easy to describe though. Not casually.

Calla's response is curious to Eddie, and he frowns up at him.)

Are they mean to animals? (It's the first thing Eddie thinks of. Not programs, because of course not. That is still too foreign an idea to him, but he's still curious about this idea of other-world cruelty.

No one ever did expect that sorta violence. It wasn't the melodramatic flare of movie violence, and maybe that was it. It was just...

Normal violence. The kind people saw all the time. Henry wasn't even that much older than Eddie either. And seeing a wrongness so young? Well.)

[callamities]

Animals? [The question comes as a surprise to Calla.] No, I don’t think so. Or, well, I don’t know. Sometimes I saw birds flying or people walking their dogs outside the Gardens. I never saw anyone mistreat them. [Other than that, Calla had little experience with animals. They weren’t actually allowed inside the Gardens.

He realizes Eddie must be asking because of his own vague answer earlier: Creators aren’t cruel—not to each other.]

I’m sorry. I misspoke, [Calla finds himself saying automatically, shying away from saying anything negative about the Creators of his homeworld as if Eddie were one of them. But… he’s not, is he? Created don’t even exist in Eddie’s world and Eddie…

Eddie understands fear—understands it like Calla understands it. The program doesn’t speak for a moment, considering. Surely it isn’t any great revelation that not all Creators behave well to someone with Eddie's experiences, even from the mouth of a Created. And any observation on his own world isn’t a slight on Creators from different ones. After some thought, Calla finally continues in a quiet voice.]

My world has many laws for how Creators should treat Created, but most Creators... don’t follow them exactly. [That’s an understatement. Many Creators treat the laws like mere suggestions on etiquette—important to follow in polite company, but ignorable in most cases.] I suppose they’re a little like Henry Bowers; nobody stops them, even when they should.

[It’s not an attack on the system—only on those who don’t play by its rules.]

[clussy]

That's good. Animals don't deserve that. (They were more innocent than even kids, Eddie thinks.

Eddie blinks in surprise, looking up at Calla with inquisitive eyes. There weren't too many adults he knew that admitted to misspeaking. Then again, he supposed Calla wasn't technically an adult. Not technically a kid either, he reminded himself. Though that was a lot harder for him to grasp.

Fear was maybe one of the only things Eddie did understand. He understood it better than just about anything else. Better than anger or being upset, and certainly better than more complicated things like love. He didn't need lessons on fear.

But maybe he needed lessons on understanding the different types.)

We technically have laws too, but a lot of the times the people who are supposed to enforce those laws- the police- don't really do anything. They kinda try but mostly...They just like to act like stuff isn't happening that's really happening.

(Like how the cops tried to act like all the missing kids was the work of a serial killer. It was delusional. What serial killer ripped the arm off a kid and left him to bleed out? What serial killer was capable of abducting so many children in the short span of summer?)

That sounds kinda like the humans I know, yeah. People aren't very good at following rules. The Doctor told me once that that's the problem with adults. No one is around to actually make sure they're kept in check like adults do with kids. And then there's a lot of adults who would rather just look the other way because it's easier for them than dealing with stuff.

(The system was flawed though, wasn't it? Eddie felt like it was. One needed to enforce rules to everyone to make sure they were followed. But he supposes that might be hard to do.)

[callamities]

[Calla listens to Eddie’s response and finds himself increasingly shocked by just how relatable his descriptions are. It feels like a dangerous thought—that there could be such similarities between the lives of a Creator and a Created—but it’s impossible to ignore.

Nobody watches the people in charge. Those who could would rather turn a blind eye. And there are people who are only too willing to take advantage of that lapse.]

I do hope you don’t take any offense at this, [Calla says, giving Eddie a quick, nervous smile.] But the way you talk about it… You make it sound as if adults treat Created and children the same.

[He's silent for a moment, trying to think of how to put the similarity into words. Then, almost under his breath:] They keep us in check, but they don’t really protect us.

[If he had a heart, it would be racing right now. If he had blood, it would rise to his face. It feels like such an outrageous charge, for a Created to pass judgment on how Creators carry out their duties. But Eddie has seen it, too. The memory Calla had seen has proven that much.]

[clussy]

(It's a peculiar thing, truthfully. Eddie doesn't fully understand the difference between Creators and Created, and a lot of it had to do with his childlike simplicity in how he saw the world. Although he's referred to Calla in slightly more objectifying ways, at the core, it was hard for Eddie to really see as Calla as less than a real person.

Yet he understands how people can be, how they are treated, and a part of that has already been ingrained into him. Another part of that feels like that's Just The Way Things Are. Adults being indifferent towards the suffering of children was Eddie's norm.

What surprises him above all else is Calla's concern at Eddie being offended. He's never really met an adult (a child? Eddie will never know how to feel about this) who cares whether or not he's offended.)

That's not offensive. (He clarifies first. And then with a shrug:) It's probably true. I don't really know how Created are treated totally, but...well.

(He goes quiet too, and he hears that.

He hears that part and Eddie's whole everything goes quiet- including his mind. His hands curl into tight little fists and those fists wind up resting against his chest.

In one simple sentence, Calla managed to clarify one thing to Eddie: they were alike.

It no longer really mattered if Calla was 'adult' or 'child', 'human' or 'program'.

There was nothing Eddie understood more than adults that failed to protect the things that they have created: whether or not that was a child or a - a Program didn't seem to matter. Eddie loosens a fist and he reaches out because in that moment, Calla was no longer an adult to be wary of or a child to shy away from. There was something more. His fingers catch around Calla's hand and he squeezes.)

Adults like to make things that they can boss around, but they don't care about anything else. (He says it quietly like it's a secret- and it might as well be.) They just like the power of creating. They like knowing they made us, and that because they made us, they can do what they want with us.

[callamities]

[When Calla first sees Eddie's reaction, his first instinct, as usual, is to apologize. He's clearly upset the boy, shocked him with his flagrant censure of those he should respect. But before that apology can leave his lips, Eddie reaches out and grabs his hand.

Calla looks down in astonishment at the small hand closed around his. This isn't like the first time Eddie had poked at his hand, in curiosity as if examining a new gadget. This time, it almost seems as if the Creator is trying to comfort him. It's not at all a sentiment that Calla is used to. Nor is the one Eddie expresses next—or rather, it's a sentiment Calla is very much used to, but not from someone like Eddie. Not from a Creator. That's enough to make those words hit like a freight train: 'They like knowing they made us, and that because they made us, they can do what they want with us.'

Almost without realizing it, Calla finds himself squeezing Eddie's hand back.]

They're the same where I'm from, [Calla says softly, voice strained. It's a strange kind of comfort, not particularly happy, but at least reassuring in the same way as any statement of "Yes; I understand" is. At least, Calla finds it more comforting than the dozens of insistences he's heard not to worry—that it's "not like that here."]

Eddie... [Calla's voice is just as quiet, as if he too is uncovering a long-held secret.] Besides those bigger boys... are there many Creator children like you?

[clussy]

(Despite having learned some valuable lessons in not casually touching people, he still seems to have a general notion of who is okay and who is not okay to just touch. Calla apparently fell into the realm of 'safe'.

Eddie's paranoia of how the world functioned as a whole wasn't completely unreasonable. Maybe he took it too far sometimes, but his trust was directly related to how much people have failed him time and time again. He wasn't aged and bitter about it, but young and wary. This sort of thing made it exceptionally easier for Eddie to open up to a being like Calla. Calla who's own limitations were made clear. Maybe Eddie would never figure out whether or not Calla struck him as more of an adult or a child, but Eddie knew that Calla was as controlled as he was.

If not maybe more. Eddie wasn't going to pretend to understand the life of a program.

Eddie frowns, but nods his head, because yeah. He isn't shocked to hear that. No matter how many kind people he meets in Avagi, his own greatest truth was just too inherent to his being now to ignore.

He stares up at Calla with large, focused eyes.)

What do you mean 'like me'?

(That could refer to a lot, frankly. Thing was, Eddie didn't think himself special enough to be a unique experience for anyone. He figured Calla was probably generalizing something.)