hugtopia_logs | ♥ September Event Log

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♥ September Event Log

a wide green pasture at dusk with a red-leafed tree in the foreground

September (Ohnir) Event Log
Ohnir is in full swing now and the weather, while still boasting hot days, is starting to cool slightly at night. The residents are recovering after the lightning storms from the previous month and, curiously, most of the robots that had been damaged in the storms are back. They don't look the same as before, but they seem to act the same, still happy, still thankful that the offworlders are here. A few even thank those who carried their bodies to the temples with small gifts of painted stones. Havenwell continues as it always has and welcomes their new arrivals with a few rather odd changes...

❥ PROMPT I: Robot Crossing

a farmer holding a bountiful box of vegetables

Now that all the new and old arrivals have mingled and met, the robotic natives start pointing everyone toward the VR cafes. The bright lights and cozy insides have been decorated with fake leaves and carved and painted plaster approximations of fruits and vegetables in odd colors. When an offworlder comes in, they explain that back when they were still in their flesh bodies, the month of Ohnir was one for harvest and celebrations of the summer bounties. Now, without any real farms or need to eat, they've translated the Harvest Festival into a game, so why not play?

Logging in with another character will net you a little farm and a variety of games to choose from:

Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Oh well, at least you won't run out before the timer hits zero and with the sheer number of levels and combinations of trees and fields with obstacles in your way to make harvesting a little more challenging with each new level, you certainly won't be running out of things to do.
With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points.
You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, there are a lot of methods! You could gather up materials and work together to stick it to the pumpkin until it absorbs them and grows. You could do a song and dance routine together to encourage the pumpkin's soul to grow big and bright. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels encouraged enough to grow on its own. The possibilities are endless, so get to work making the best pumpkin that (digital) fair has ever seen!

As always, when playing the game, the picture and quality seems to increase as long as you're in contact with another person. Once the games are over and your scores tallied, the cafe attendant walks over and asks to see your communicators. To the winners, he or she attaches a little floating charm in the shape of one of Aellyn's weirder fruits. It looks like a cross between a blue rambutan and the hala aka puhala fruit, and it's called the sikheen fruit here. The sikheen are extremely rare nowadays, but their appearance is so unique that Havenwell residents still like to remember it for the Harvest Festival. Enjoy your prize!

❥ PROMPT II: Paint by Number

The new arrivals get to enjoy Havenwell in all its glory for about a week before suddenly, one day everyone wakes up to find the entire city has gone gray. And not a natural, nice gray either, but a strange dull, lifeless gray. Everything from the sky to the houses to the grass to the native people have all turned the exact same shade of graphite gray. Even the natives are confused and the devout flock to the temples while the science-minded head to the labs to study this new phenomenon. The only ones who seem spared from this strange color drain are the offworlders and the statues of the gods in the center of town. Or, well, at least most of the offworlders are spared. A few people might notice that their colors aren't as bright as they once were, or that parts of them are starting to turn gray as well. Those offworlders unlucky enough to lose some of their own can touch another player character to regain what was lost easily enough. Overall though, no one seems harmed by this sudden loss of color, but they're certainly perplexed.

A few days later and round silver platforms start showing up around the city, dragged out of storage by the natives. The first arrivals might remember these as the fireworks platforms that are activated by people standing and holding hands on them. The temple priests and scientists encourage the offworlders to stand on the platforms again and to hold hands or engage in some other sort of physical contact on them and wait.

When characters do as asked, the platforms shoot fireworks like they did before - in brilliant colors instead of the dull gray everywhere. And wherever the sparks fall, color starts returning to the world in splotches. The natives are overjoyed and move the platforms all across the city, asking the offworlders to find and use them wherever possible to return the color to their town.

❥ PROMPT III: Sharing is Caring

a book open with images and words popping out

Ohma's temple is particularly lively during Ohnir and the priests are busy cleaning and sweeping, decorating it with rolls of parchment and digital inkwells and quills that write as if they were actually fountain pens. The natives, especially adherents of Ohma, start to make pilgrimages to the temple in little processions, some playing music, others flying banners. It would probably be far more impressive if the colors weren't still so gray and splotchy, but they're trying their best.

Anyone who chooses to follow can observe the natives going up to the altar and sharing stories with one another. They talk about things they did over the past year or things that are far, far in their past. Some of the stories are happy and result in the procession laughing and some are...well, not everyone came back from the lightning storms. The priests diligently write every story down on those parchment rolls and deposit them onto the waiting altar, where they're summarily lit on fire to the cheers of those present. The more emotional the story it seems, the brighter and bluer the flame that it emits and the louder the procession cheers.

As the file out, they notice you watching and urge you to go up with someone else in the temple to clear your heart and offer up your own stories. They can be stories of home, information about your worlds, or stories about your life. It seems the more personal the story, the brighter the flame though and the more Dora that will mysteriously show up in your account at a later date. If the priests are asked about this donation later, they're just as perplexed. No one they know would have paid anyone for an offering to Ohma, so where could it have come from....?

❥ PROMPT IV: Sleep Sweet

With Ainea's temple familiars finally back where they belong, quiet returns to the city at night. We're sure that first long uninterrupted sleep felt heavenly, right? Although there may not be color in the city, the world of dreams at least is fully technicolor and safe. Which might be weird for some characters in case they don't normally dream or remember their dreams because now everyone is dreaming at night. Most of the dreams are the usual variety that your character always has, but every so often in the midst of a pleasant dream about home or a funky one about flying pizza (whatever it is you usually dream about, we don't judge), there's a glitch.

Out of the corner of your eye or just on the edge of your vision, a person appears. Their face can't be seen and their arms are longer than they have any right to be, but they appear and stand there, watching. Trying to focus on this person causes them to flit away and it's easy enough to dismiss as a random event, until it keeps happening. And it keeps happening, and it keeps happening, and every time you see this person, they get closer and even less distinct. Waking up and talking to or holding someone might help calm that disquiet in your heart, offworlder, so hopefully there's someone around to help you.

This event will run from September 16th to September 30th. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread on the OOC Entry.

Feel free to also use the OOC Plotting Post for planning what your character is up to!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

See? It's not so hard to be a normal person and introduce yourself.

[What was that about a sarcastic biting comeback? Did you miss it? Because he's always happy to provide.

Taako snickers as he shakes her hand over Kova, and is somewhat confused when the rapid-fire beating of his heart actually starts to slow a little. Maybe it's the alcohol finally kicking in, or maybe it's the fact that this planet apparently has a hard-on for destroying personal bubbles. Honestly, as Taako holds onto Honerva's hand, he's thinking it's probably the latter.]

Now we might even have regular conversations because I'm not constantly using 80% of my brain power trying to think up worse and worse nicknames in an attempt to make you break out of annoyance.

[Ah, there it is. But with the slight delay in delivery and the fact that she's still holding on to his hand, it's still nicely buffered than if he had led right in with it.]

Then, I am glad that such a thing will no longer distract from the... quality of our conversations.

[But normal? Regular? By whose standards, indeed. But no time like the present to make an attempt...?]

... Although, Lup told me once that she never tried to be normal, and said that you would back that up for her.

Well, natch.

[He doesn't try to pull his hand back since he's growing calmer by the second, even if it's an odd position to be in. Kova's still sitting on his chest, there are four and half cups of alcohol on the table, and here he is with his hand stuck up in the air, holding onto Honerva. The blood hasn't started draining out of his arm yet though, so here he stays.]

Normal for us and normal for the rest of the boring ass world is completely different. Most normies would think going out to a bar is for drinking, but us? Pfft, nah. Going to a bar is for hustling suckers at pool for their shoes. And drinking after we steal their shoes.

[It was nice to hold his hand like this, given it provided a layer of ease there that had not been present before. Not quite the same amount as braiding Lup's hair had provided, but... it was a difference, certainly noticeable in a world which relied upon such things.]

Then it seems that "normal" is only defined by your priorities, in that situation...

[The priority of them being in some need or want of shoes, in that case, instead of spending the money for it that they may not have had access to, with the bonus of whatever fun there was in winning it.

When she applied that analogy to what she was used to, normal for her once upon a time would have been taking ownership of the bar and then using it for a completely different purpose and not even having a drink at all by the end of it.

And now she was back to trying to understand such concepts in the first place, with her priorities so altered and not even established.]

Perhaps you can show me what pool is, sometime.

In all situations, natch.

[He shrugs his shoulders, pointedly ignoring that they're still holding hands. The unease is nearly gone by now, but the lingering edges of it encourage him to continue what is easing it.

At the suggestion, however, he laughs a little.]

I can show you what pool is - but only if you're willing to wager your shoes.

[She has nowhere to be, so if he makes no sign of wanting to let go, she's not about to either.

Hard to tell if it's a rare opportunity or not, after all, that his mood seems to be allowing for it. And it's -- nice.]

Really? Sounds as though you think I'll be a quick learner.

[Or the opposite. She seems amused, though. Not as though he hadn't helped pick out the shoes for her in the first place.]

May I ask why are shoes your wager of choice? It seems like there is a story behind that one.

You're either going to be a genius and I'll find someone else I can use to hustle people, or you're going to be terrible and I'll get a new pair of footwear. Either way, I win.

[Because he assumes she's not going to obliterate him and take his shoes. She has no use for them, unlike the other way around.]

And we were leaving our plane for a few months - why would we need money, right? But shoes? You can always use shoes. And even if you don't want them? [He laughs in a slightly unkind manner.]

There is nothing funnier than watching some sucker have to walk home without his damn shoes.

If you say so, Taako.

[She gets it, though. His explanation helps, confirming some of her thoughts; either a beneficial use or a source of amusement, perhaps it didn't take much, to amuse him in that way.

Or it was just about the sort of thing that was needed, while they got by. Simple enough. The sorts of elusive things she'd struggled to make sense of now that there was opportunity to.]

You make it seem as if all of your amusement comes with such a price.

I mean, ch'yeah?

[What good is amusement if it doesn't amuse him? If most of his entertainment comes at the expense of others, he can't really be blamed for that, right?]

I never professed to be a good person.

[Even if he's often gone out of his way to help people or do things that would benefit others or spent the last century trying to save all of reality. Taako rolls his eyes and then realizes that his unease is gone and the blood is rapidly draining out of his arm. This is the most at ease Honerva has ever been around him though, so he has to consider his options here. He can pull his hand away and break this little moment up, or sit here and end up losing feeling in his arm.

Choices, choices.]

And anyone who says the opposite can go hug a bugbear.

[Whatever kind of person Taako was, he had a far better grasp of the concept of person than she did, anyway, so it wasn't as if she could judge him for those choices. She is far more at ease around him than she ever had been, though. It's nice, if unusual. Hard to know if it would last with him, but for now she wasn't... worried about that.]

You are yourself.

[She does at least understand the twins are more... unique as far as some things go.]

You have the... choice of the sort of person you want to be, regardless of how others may see you. Or the role you find yourself in.

[That's... how it works, right?]

[He snorts in amusement and pulls his hand away finally, waving it to both get the blood flowing and chase away her words.]

Look at you being all Lady Wisdom there. What brought about this little nugget, huh?

[He shakes his arm and then drops it down, frowning at it as he starts to scoot Kova off him.]

Been talking to Lulu, I bet.

[Kova gives a little start at the movement, though he acquiesces and shifts with a kitty yawn and stretch, trying to figure out how the elf plans to position himself.]

She and I do speak often, of thoughts like that.

[Though that particular gem... well, there's a little more bittersweet to that.]

Although, perhaps that consideration had been... initially inspired by Loki.

[It says a lot, that she's not referring to him as Captain as she so often did, even if she realizes, they may not have quite been on proper first name terms before the separation. So much of that left over, on her part.]

Figured. She's just as much of a nerd as you are.

[He sits up and rolls his shoulder, letting Kova resettle into his lap and giving him an ear scratch as a reward. He's always had an easier time with animals than people. Animals were distrustful and you had to earn their friendship. It felt like a real accomplishment when you did it, and they rarely ever broke that bond once formed. Unlike with people, who might turn around and betray you like assholes at the first inclination.

He frowns though, at the mention of Loki. Their Captain was...not without his own enigmas that always left Taako on edge, but he'd wanted Loki to like him. He'd seen him as a child and liked that little shit, and had tried to make overtures which was...unlike him. And now Loki was missing along with Thor, and here was Taako, hearing his words out of Honerva's mouth.

He scoffs a little and shrugs, looking away.]

But is that so? Wonder what he'd think, seeing you as you are now, huh?

... I know what he thought, and it hasn't been so long, since then. After all, we spoke a lot as well, before we were--separated.

[Before they were pulled into this world instead of arriving in Taako's own, as intended. She was well aware of how guiding Loki had been for her; he'd known her since they'd both arrived on the fleet and had witnessed just how much she had changed. He seemed to be... proud of her, too, at times, when she wasn't making some obvious mistake.]

He knew of my fondness for you both even before I had the words to convey it. He is... very perceptive that way.

Comes with being a god, I guess.

[Even if Loki was the most human god he'd ever met. He'd given Taako hints at what Honerva was talking about, but being him, Taako had ignored it for the most part. Filed it away in some part of his brain and then promptly tossed it away. He'd been afraid of getting too close to anyone, still was in a lot of ways, and when Thor and Loki had disappeared? Well, that had mostly proven his point on why.

Taako rolls his eyes and reaches over for the cups on the table, knocking the rest of his first one back before pulling a face.]

If you're going to get mushy on me, I need to be drunker than I am.

... If you attribute that only to his being a god, then you lose sight of the very point he wanted to make.

[So drink up, Taako. She has... plenty of sentiment in knowing what she's lost with Loki's absence.

She moves back around to half-sit on her previous spot on the sofa.]

[He leans back against the other arm of the sofa, drawing his legs up a little, less to give her space to sit and more to create a physical barrier between him and her. This is going to be an uncomfortable topic, he can tell, and he isn't well suited for difficult topics. He prefers to keep his interactions light and shallow and meaningless so it isn't so hard when they break down. Honerva - as weird as it is to think of her as Honerva after all this time - has made a lot more in-roads into his defenses than he likes to admit, but that doesn't mean he has to drop the whole act at once.

That isn't like him. This isn't like him.

He picks up another cup, depositing the empty one in its place, and takes a few sips of it just to have something to do.]

Yeah yeah, we all make our own roads, blah blah. I know what you meant, I'm not that dumb.

[He pauses and then snorts.]

Well no, I am that dumb, but not right now.

[After another sip that was less liquid and more sound, he glances over at her where she's perched.]

You been thinking about the ones who aren't here a lot?

[Lucky for him, it's not as if she sits on furniture properly, if she does at all, which probably makes it easier for him to shift his position. He could certainly claim more space, either way.

At his words, though, she's quiet for a moment, considering his question and their conversation.]

... I find that I think of those of you who are here more often.

[After all, they keep her rooted in the now, as much as they were her cause and her future: Lup, Taako, Kova.

Though her heart would ache when she would think of Loki, and whether or not he and Thor made it somewhere they could at least have one another if not all of them. There was still the other loss, that deep hurt that she knew she would not be free of.]

Probably smarter that way.

[Thinking of all that was lost is a surefire way straight to the road to hell and depression. Taako's been down that road way too many times, enough that his heart has hardened to it and to the allure of finding new people to fill the holes left by the ones lost. Lup always berates him for it, says she knows he's better than that, but Taako? He knows he's not. He doesn't want to be.

It hurts too much to think about the ones who are gone, the people he won't see again. Loki and Thor might be waiting in his world when they all arrive. They also might have gone back to their own world without Lup and Taako to act as a tether. If that happened, then Loki was...

Taako grimaces and slams the drink back, sputtering a little as it burns its way down his throat.]

Fuuuuuck me! All this thinking is not my style. Kova, either you go get me a toy to play with or I'm going to change this cup into a dog.

[Can he do that? No, no he cannot.]

... I know the alternative would far worse, were it to overcome.

[Kova just looks up at him and gives him a sharp mrow at his agitation, batting at the cup at the 'threat'.

Honerva just gives the pair an odd look, but she notices a small ball that had rolled into a corner, and levitates it, letting it fall in the space on the couch that separated them.

Easy to tell he's shifting mood again, which means her hard-earned ease with him was quickly beginning to evaporate.]

["Were it to overcome." Yeah, that's exactly why Taako didn't like dwelling on the past. Shit got lost, shit got fucked up, that was just how life went.

Taako huffs as Kova bats at the cup until the ball thumps hollowly on the couch cushion. He tilts his head a little to see where it lay and then shot a look at Honerva. The tilt turns into an incline as if to say thanks and then he uses his foot to grab the ball, flipping it up so he can catch it in his free hand.

He holds the ball in front of Kova, twitching it to one side and then the other to catch the cat's attention.]

Kova! Can you fuck up this ball like a mouse? I bet you caaaan.

[Kova's head darts, from glass to ball, tempted to be a little shit to Taako about it, but he was smart enough to intuit that Taako was not having a good time right now and play to distract was the objective. He mrows, shifting his batting attention toward that ball. Gonna pounce. Gonna pounce that ball, can't stop him.

And Honerva... watches them, falling into silence but allowing them to be the moment, even as it stirs... something in her, a vague ghost of a memory that she can't fully place.]

[He laughs a little as he sees Kova's eyes focus on the ball, pupils growing as he chooses to play along rather. Taako stops moving the ball and suddenly tosses it to the other side of the couch toward Honerva. Some cats liked to chase and pounce on moving objects. They wouldn't bring it back, not like dogs would, but they would play with it and Taako could do with the distraction of watching an animal lose its mind over a fuzzy ball for a bit.]

[He might be an alien cat but Kova is still definitely a cat, ears perked and eyes moving back and forth to catch the movement, tail twitched with interest.

And then the ball goes over his head to land behind him, and he turns, trying to bat at it midair but it lands, and he rolls with it, but.

Honerva watches; it is a nice distraction, to see Kova so invested in play. Perhaps it is not so much of a game if the cat wins so quickly? So after a few moments, enough for him to get familiar with the toy, she remains where she is but tugs at it with her magic, not pulling it quite all the way away but enough for him to have to keep moving, let it roll a little further while he scampers a bit, back and forth in that space between them, allowing the cat to provide entertainment while being entertained.]

[This is such a huge change from the first time they met. Back then, getting Honerva to even interact with Kova had been a chore. Now, she pets the cat, feeds it, and plays with it.

Huh.

Taako watches her as she moves the ball around, enticing Kova into play. The cat is so much happier now that he's being taken care of and not just accommodated. It's the same with people, he supposes. Honerva looks...happier?

Dammit.

He has to do the same with her as she's doing with Kova, doesn't he? Fuck! He hates having to care, but here he is, giving a shit again. A decade away from all the bullshit that had been his life sure had a way of changing a guy. Taako lets out a loud sigh and reclines against the sofa arm again, leaning an elbow against the edge of it, chin in hand as he watches her.]

Took you long enough, but looks like you finally learned the lesson I tried to teach you a year ago.

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