( 003 » ENSEMBLE ) party time.

[reveriemod]

» WHO? Everyone
» WHEN? July 1 to July 8
» WHERE? Entire Station
» WHAT? 168 hours of being forced to listen to cheesy music on repeat…
» WARNINGS? the mundane and slightly ridiculous becoming terrible, cheesy pop music, forced sleep deprivation, anger, loss of control, emotions, potential for stabbing, hallucinations, mania, memory loss, confusion, seizures, depression.

0 0 1 » LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED

It starts in the mess hall and it starts slowly. At first, it can barely be heard over the conversations that are happening but as the volume increases, it becomes apparent that music is playing. Not just any music: characters from Earth will recognise these pop hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s. They’re the kind of hits one might find on a Spotify playlist titled “Top 100 Cheesy Hits” or “Songs To Sing To In The Shower”. Power ballads. Boy bands. Girl bands. Woodstock.

Soon, the music can be heard all across the station, blasting from every speaker, audible in every room. Characters who were asleep in their quarters will be woken by the music’s volume, characters under the shower might want to start singing along (but remember, the walls might just be thin enough for the neighbours to hear) and if characters clear some chairs, there’s enough space in the bar for an impromptu dance floor.

Some characters have been working on improving the replicators, too, so while the alcohol supplies at the bar are dwindling and all but gone, the replicators are now capable of making something that’s palatable, even if it’s not quite up to scratch.

What’s the harm in having some fun? It’s just a little music, right?

( ♪ )

0 0 2 » I WANT OFF THIS RIDE

It’s just a little music, right? And it is — but it just won’t seem to stop. The first few hours may have been entertaining, at least for those who did not get woken up by the sound of decades (centuries, even) in the past, but the music keeps going long past the point of entertainment.

After two hours, the songs start repeating. After six hours, they’re still playing. After twelve? Still playing. Twenty-four? Still playing.

Sleep becomes all but impossible as the music keeps playing loudly in every room and every corridor of the station. Attempts to shut it down prove unsuccessful.

Forty-eight hours later, the music is still playing.

Characters will begin to suffer the effects of sleep deprivation, in addition to the general irritation that might come from hearing the same two hours worth of cheesy pop songs on a loop: headaches, exhaustion, tremors, irritability and confusion to begin with, followed by lapses in memory, muscle aches, malaise, violent behaviour, hallucinations or mania as cognitive effects set in, possibly also seizures and depression.

And still, the music keeps playing.

( ♪ )

0 0 3 » THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER

The music and the sleep deprivation it causes are the reason for many of the symptoms people are feeling, but something is happening that goes even beyond the music, beyond the lack of sleep: something has changed about the food replicators.

The food is slowly getting better, for one, thanks to a group of individuals who’ve been working on improving them. Beyond that, however, imperceptible, the composition of the food comes with something extra -- namely heightened emotions. Whatever causes it, it’s in the water, too.

Those who are already angry feel angrier and have a harder time controlling that anger. Those who are already sad feel sadder and have a harder time not bursting into tears. Those who are already apathetic feel more apathetic and have a harder time prompting themselves to so much as move. The effect holds for all emotions, heightening them, making them harder to control or counteract. Impulses become action far more quickly than usual. Irritation at the music may become anger at the person singing along under their breath and that, in turn, may lead to someone getting stabbed with a plastic fork.

It’s nearly impossible to keep a cool head, though some people seem more affected than others.

OOC: This part of the plot is completely opt-in. Whatever characters are feeling will be heightened and strengthened and their impulse control lowered. Make sure to get ooc permission for any stabby action of comparable deeds, and keep in mind that non-con is prohibited in game.

( ♪ )

0 0 4 » AFTERMATH

After 168 hours, the music stops. Whatever was in the water and the food is gone again, meaning characters may never know it was there in the first place. After all, some of the effects of it could have been down to the sleep deprivation as well…

Still, there’s something off about the whole thing. It might seem like someone is watching them. Toying with them. But surely that’s just paranoia, right?

In the aftermath of sleep deprivation and poor impulse control, characters might want to get some sleep or try to mend those relationships that were damaged by careless words or people getting creative with the cutlery.

( ♪ )

Please remember to put warnings in subject lines if so required.

Comments

[dvmn]

[People grew into the shapes that others' influences molded them into. It wasn't the only factor, of course. Another was the scape of their environment and their placement within it, and there were some intrinsic aspects that could be argued existed in some sense from birth. Akira doesn't have the ability to imagine what sort of person he would be now without the distinct individual factors which had helped to form him. Without Ryo and his friendship in the early dawn of their childhood, without his parents (or perhaps with his parents), without the Makimuras. Life was a finite period of time, so it wasn't efficient to spend too much of it thinking of what might have happened if things had gone differently.

But it all precipitates to that Akira thinks that he is very much the better for having known Ryo, and he likes to stand as a similar figure in the other's own life. When banded together, people tended to become something greater than the sum of their parts.

Though Akira had never quite agreed with Ryo's perception, of his staunch "us against the world" view that even when unvoiced went unspoken and electric in the intent beneath his words and actions, there was something trained in him that could reflexively twinge towards such a response. When it came to what was metaphorical, Akira's thoughts were slow, disorganized, without base. But when pushed up to the precipice of action, backed by the inevitability of disaster, he became a steel trap. Some were meant to think, and others were meant to act. Whether that was something bred into their bones and the wiring of their brains or it was something they developed, either defensive or responsive, he isn't sure. He'd never really be sure. He leaves the deepest of his thinking up to others.

It's a comfort to him. One similar to the one that enshrouds him like the circle of Ryo's arms as he feels the faint vestige of the kiss he presses into his hair. Just as Ryo doesn't dwell upon it, neither does Akira; so much of their relationship has been an unspoken cadence of affectionate gestures.

He reaches out to take Ryo's hand, though he's still standing up mostly through his own impetus, feeling the tiredness from the aching around his eyes all the way down to the leaden feeling of his bones. He blinks at the question, and even before he drafts a formal response there's a twinge to his expression, something immediately telegraphing the type of answer he might give.

He ends up shaking his head.] ...No. [He's already spent enough sleepless hours in the room. It's why he'd come out here, started wandering around the station in the first place. He kept thinking about how the music seemed to be getting louder, as if the speakers were re-situating themselves right behind his head. He'd started to think about trying to rip the walls apart so he could find them and destroy them once or for all.

It was best he didn't end up getting into that cycle again.]

Somewhere else? I... don't really care where. I just don't really want to be in the room right now.

[luciformis]

[ For Ryo, he had never quite comprehended Akira's ability to trust.

Humanity had always found ways to take advantage tooth and claw. They had always found ways to better self-serve instead of self-sacrifice. They had always found anything odd to be worth abandoning, unless it could serve their cause. And in a way, Ryo had been the last of them. Ryo had given humanity an image, a cause. He had presented to them the truth of their world with Akira, but it would inevitably not be enough. Back there, in that place, Ryo knew innately that society would devolve until the threat was mitigated. He did not know if humanity had the ability to withstand at all. And through it, he'd promised still to protect Akira. He'd promised to keep him safe from what could cause him harm. He'd tried his utmost to do that still and here, but —

Ryo had always been this way since he could recall. He'd always had Akira at his side, until they were forced apart. He still remembers the way the tears had tracked down Akira's small face, the way he had clutched at his heart. He still remembers looking back until he could no longer see Akira at the door, Jenny's hand about his steady and cold. She'd felt familiar to him then, but there had always been that tightness in his chest until the day he'd called out to Akira at the docks. In many ways, it was an echo of their first meeting. A reversal of sorts, his hand held out to Akira to take as Akira once held out his own. In that way, in many ways — Akira had left his impression upon him. Ryo, in the aftermath of the first time Akira spoke, had been changed irreparably though he wouldn't know.

Not for a long, long time.

But, still, he watches as Akira mulls it over, takes his hand. He knows the answer before he says it and Ryo only nods once, silent. ]

Okay, [ he says, after the full of Akira's admission. He curls his fingers reflexively about Akira's hand. If that is what Akira wants, Ryo has trouble abiding to it.

Ryo doesn't need to tell him where they're going. He knows at some level that Akira would follow him anywhere, as much as Ryo would follow him. His pace keeps with Akira's naturally, winding through the dull corridors. No matter the manner of cleaning, the amount of travel and time — there was always something worn about the way they looked. Like the oceans back home, their surface were only at times reflective, the scuff of age blurring their forms, their faces. It's easiest to think in this way, against the drone of radio favorites. It's simpler to focus on the sound of his own footsteps, the weight of Akira's hand still caught up in his. For a moment, he wonders why he hasn't released it and realizes in equal measure there's no sense in doing it. It's always been comfortable this way. Since they were children, they'd been just like this: linked by the curve of their fingers, the meeting of the palms of their hands. He remembers in clear strokes the first time Akira had reached out to him, his grip assuring as it was warm. Ryo hadn't been able to fill that distance then, but he fills it now. It serves as an anchor, a distraction from all that torment them.

And in a way, it's like Akira said: you make everything quieter, even if Ryo does not permit himself to admit it. Not yet.

It's a quiet few minutes, but the door to the hydroponics must by now be familiar. Ryo doesn't hesitate to nudge the door open, to lead Akira through the rows of greenery to where it is the thickest. Amid the cheery heads of sunflowers, Ryo turns to him, the blue of his eyes somehow brighter against them and the omnipresent grey. ] Plant life provides natural sound absorption. [ He says, gesturing up with his spare hand. Sure enough, there is something more muffled about the quality in here. It isn't quiet, no, but the edge is gone enough to alleviate any pounding headache one might have. ] It'll be better here.

[ And it is. At least, in part. ]

[dvmn]

[It had never been so complicated to him. Having a keen insight into people meant that you saw the bad with the good, but the reason he'd never grown disillusioned is because he could see how people strove so hard to surpass what could be so much easier to them in order to be better.

It's never about the baseline of humanity. It was about their ability to reach past that, to augment themselves with empathy and compassion, to make their lives about not just the ruthless pursuit for what would better their own easeful existence but for the happiness and safety of others.

Not everyone was like that, of course. But enough were that he never lost his faith.

As he stands the hallway swims around him in a way that is not at all like being drunk or otherwise impaired; it's a distinct disconnect of information from what the eyes were perceiving to what the brain was prepared to process. Even when he had them uselessly closed, his eyes ached now, a dull headache pounding against his temples from the inside. For his merit Akira doesn't sway; were he still completely human he probably would have, but demons are agile and well-coordinated beasts. He takes a deep breath, preparing himself mentally for the process of moving himself from one place to another.

He follows Ryo in a kind of automatic way that was simply a part of something having become habit, spread throughout a lifetime. He started to get an idea of where he was taking him after a while, though he couldn't say he spent very much time in here. He had a vague worry of accidentally knocking a bunch of stuff over. But maybe one good side-effect of being physically exhausted is that he probably didn't have that amount of boundless energy to have something like that happen in the first place.

Akira blinks owlishly at the broad expanse of greenery when they enter. It's been so long since he's seen something like this, so he wasn't really prepared for the twist of homesickness that took root in his stomach, yearning for slow minutes spent sprawled out underneath the canopies of trees in a small copse off the path of their running route; Miki laughing and saying something gentle yet joking as Akira panted for breath out of the glare of the midday summer sun. He blinks again and the vision is gone, and visions of hiding out of sight of their supervisors in the foliage of the schoolyard back when they were kids, though there were ghosts of those memories clinging to him as he slowly turned to look Ryo in the eye. He holds his hand a little tighter, the pad of his thumb sweeping over one of his knuckles.]

Yeah. Much better. [He gives a faint smile. It's more in the sense of it. If the plants deadened much of the sound, the difference was made up in that Akira's hearing was much better than your garden variety human. But he did feel calmer, seeing something green and familiar growing in the cold, metallic heart of this terminal they were all stuck on.

This time he's the one to lead, gently pulling Ryo further into the rows of plants, idly inspecting them as he walks past.] I haven't been in here in a while. Wow... it all grew really fast, huh?

[He's quiet for a moment.]

Wish we could have stuff like this all over the ship. It'd make it feel a lot less... [he trails off, vocabulary failing him, mental exhaustion poking dozens of holes in his mental lexicon,] shitty. [Good enough.]

[luciformis]

[ Ryo knows greenery.

He holds no gentle and recent memories of it the way Akira does, but he too remembers hiding from their supervisors in the wild shrubbery. He remembers too the smell of bay roses at the shore, how he'd carefully dissected a specimen for Akira to see without brushing his fingers against the sharp ends of thorns. But, still, there's something older than that, more painful. He doesn't know why, at the residual corners of his memory, it takes root. Like night blooming flowers, their pale faces tilted up to the moon, he doesn't know what it is about the smell of Earth that draws him to it. But in that same way, he supposes, wouldn't it then be natural that he was drawn too to the sun? The heat of Akira's palm spreads through his, makes him softer — more malleable. He watches for Akira's reaction, knows that the fainter smile he gives him is not what he'd hoped, but in some ways had hoped for as he Akira's fingers brush across the curve of his knuckles, tightens their grip.

He tells himself that he doesn't know what it is that illuminates him from the inside out as Akira does, a distorted reflection of what Akira gives him so readily.

There's a warmth at the corners of his mouth, at the soft round of his shoulders. As children, he'd resisted the initial pull toward the world. In the classrooms, in the games that they would play — he'd kept toward the edge. He'd found more interest in the books the adults would open, in the manipulation of toys beyond their intended purpose. And Akira, who cried for anyone, situated himself beside Ryo and never learned how to part. Ryo doesn't wonder what would happen if he did, because he knows no other world without Akira in it. He knows, in the deepest parts of him, there would be nothing left of him.

Still, he doesn't smile, but he needn't have to. His eyes are bright, no matter the weight of the fatigue that sprawls between them both — a thick and heavy sediment. In its settling, it stirs up what's beneath more than Ryo cares to touch on. His heart hums, certain but unsteady, assuaged and aggravated both by the way Akira doesn't let him go. It shouldn't be anything new (and it isn't), but Ryo reasons the potency of his reactions are in part colored by the environment, the nutrition they're forced to take in. He reasons it could be any number of things, as Akira weaves with him through the full and verdant rows. He reasons, when Akira remarks on the growth and his wishes, that his tongue trips because he'd been focused on which plants Akira lingered over longest. ]

We could ask Okumura-san, [ he says, after a long moment. The pad of his thumb, calloused as it, strokes over the broader edge of Akira's own. It's a reciprocal action, as his eyes flicker over to seek out Akira's. It's almost automatic. It's where his attention had always settled, in the end. ] The first hydroponics garden was her idea. [ He remembers when she'd first started. He'd visited her then, given her clearer ideas on what they could do to assure solid growth. And he'd visited at least once a day since then, no matter the discovery of the larger room. Her own had been more established, he reasoned. It was best to see what could be derived and transplanted from them. ] I'm sure she'd like to see that too.

[ He needn't vocalize that he suggests it for Akira's sake, but in many way he does. Already, his gears are turning even despite his lack of energy. He thinks of what they have in storage, what is already growing. He wonders which ones would most resemble the paths they'd tread at home. ]