Event - Connectivity

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Connectivity

➥ Misinformed

(cw: theft, home invasion, paranoia)

The years have gone missing. Something's taking the books and papers from homes and libraries, even shops. Tracking it headed your way. -CP

You might be one of those the cryptic message is delivered to directly if you met and worked with Cindy Parsons, a local newscaster from Wolf Pen, WV. They seem to be making good on a promise to help a select few out after the people of ADI stopped an apocalypse ritual on their doorstep. If you didn't get a direct message, you might hear murmurs of it from various sources around ADI HQ. Gossip has a way of spreading, especially when there's some potential supernatural threat in it.

Sure enough, for intrepid researchers, they'll be able to find news reports of a strange series of threats heading from West Virginia toward Gloucester, starting with Cindy's reporting about a town about 20 miles north of Wolf Pen. Every book and newspaper, whether physical or digital, that was published in the year 2020 seems to have disappeared within certain towns. Local police are flummoxed.

And then it hits Gloucester.

The public library puts out a request for any information on the missing materials as well as a request for donations to replace their books and other printed materials. Who would do this? While replacing digital items is time-consuming and costly, the physical copies of things are even harder to manage, especially with so many libraries in the region being hit by this effect. The year 2020 has been wiped out.

Everyone will find that their own personal libraries/information stores have been picked clean, as well. Homes that seem secure will always have some sort of evidence of potential breaking and entering. However safe you thought you were in your home, however safe your coveted knowledge, it can disappear in an instant.

The library has requested volunteers assist in raising money for them to replace everything as quickly as possible, in the event the knowledge fiends who did this can't be found. Community-minded individuals might defy ADI's guidance and take up their own volunteer efforts, interacting with locals to knock on doors, start a bake sale, or start some kind of money-making activity to assist the library.

Those with more caution in their step will be tasked by ADI with searching Dogtown for the missing materials. They have a hunch about this. Maybe it will prove fruitful.

➥ Misplaced

(cw: cuts, wounds, foreign objects embedded in flesh, supernaturally-induced apathy)

un: gracefully
Everyone, this is Neil Grace, Head of Security. We have a problem on our hands. A field agent recently returned to Gloucester with a cursed artifact that shattered upon entry into town. This field agent failed to inform anyone for several days as they tried to fix the problem themselves. They are being dealt with.

What we know right now is that the artifact was a crystal, something associated with the Lonely. It may be responsible for the recent disappearance of printed materials from around Gloucester and elsewhere in the country. I've attached a location pin that should give you the point for where the crystal shattered. We're getting reports that people living in that area are displaying unusual behavior. Please work in teams of at least two. Be careful, and avoid touching crystal pieces where possible.

- Neil

It's easy enough to find the park where the shattering happened. There's an unnatural quiet and emptiness throughout the park with pockets of sound. Eagle-eyed (or just persistent) individuals will be able to track down shards of crystal that have embedded themselves into trees and along the ground. Given the distance they seem to be from the initial shatter point, it's clear some supernatural force was involved in flinging these things.

Anyone spending a decent amount of time at or around the park will begin to note that it's not just the environment that's off here, but some of the people, too. That guy you spotted on a bench, ostensibly watching some squirrels? He hasn't moved. It's hard to tell if he's even breathing, but approach him, and he'll glance up before looking away again. There's no affect on his face, no real engagement. Trying to talk to him will garner painfully slow and mono-syllabic responses. There's just no life or personality to him. And the longer you talk, the more the cold seeps in. It's getting harder to care about what you were doing. Maybe this guy has it right. Just do nothing. Stop trying.

You might still spot the wound on his neck and the glinting shard of crystal that seems to be embedded there. But do you even want to bother? It's hard to summon the will to do so when the important things stop mattering and thoughts of other people slip away.

➥ Missed Connections

(cw: socioeconomic disaster; scarcity)

There aren't further network communications regarding the state of the search for the crystal shards...because sometime in the afternoon after Neil's message goes out, there simply aren't any more network communications at all. As the day goes on, the initial assumption is that ADI's internet provider is falling down on the job, leaving headquarters, official housing, and ADI-networked devices without access. The same is true over at Bonnie's Flophouse, though, and local staff soon realize and reveal that their own home internet and phone services are no longer working. All internet, cell phone, and landline services are down for the count...making it a little difficult to immediately figure out just how widespread the problem is.

It's treated as a minor inconvenience around ADI for the first few days. Surely things will get back up and running soon, everyone will get a rote apology from their service providers, and it will turn out to be the result of vandals or some accident taking down a major fiber optic cable–it wouldn't be the first time that's happened in the USA. There's a lot of grumbling around the offices thanks to frustration over lack of access to electronic records and the need to tramp all over the building to track down a coworker and speak face to face instead of shooting off a quick message. Around Gloucester, businesses either close their doors or muddle through on a cash-only basis, reluctantly writing off a day or two of profits while they await the internet's return.

Except it simply...doesn't. Days turn into a week, and then two. What struck most as an inconvenience becomes a quiet, ongoing catastrophe. Hospitals and emergency services resort to whatever handheld radios they can get their hands on to deal with what patients they aren't able to reschedule or send out of town, with pharmacies and medical and veterinary offices scrambling to re-establish lines of communication via overworked staff physically relaying written messages across town. The supply chain all but grinds to a halt, so even after most local businesses reopen on a cash-only basis, shelves begin to go bare, leading to a panicked rush on what remains–mainly, over-the-counter medication and non-perishable food get bought up at accelerated rates and become increasingly scarce within Gloucester. Local banks are swarmed by residents attempting to withdraw what limited stores of cash are available, and even trusted customers who are able to access their accounts face days-long waiting periods. What's worse, the outage makes it impossible for ADI's off-worlders to access their salaries within Gloucester: the prepaid debit cards ADI uses to distribute payments can't be accepted by businesses and cash advance services have been toppled by the outage.

The outage includes Gloucester, Dogtown, and the surrounding small towns that rely on Gloucester for most of their services, but outside a certain radius it seems things are business as usual for the rest of the country (aside from national interest in Gloucester's strange ongoing disaster). It's possible to reach an area with internet and phone service within a day's drive in order to get cash and supplies from outside banks and businesses, but within a week the knock-on effects begin, with panic-buying and panic-withdrawals making supplies and cash increasingly hard to come by in the surrounding area. Within a week ADI begins doing their best to provide cash payment to staff in need, but the company and the banks on which it relies simply don't have enough cash on hand to pay out everyone's weekly salaries in full.

There are, indeed, apologies from service providers, their public statements provided both via the internet for the world at large, and via fliers within Gloucester. At first these apologies come alongside promises that services will be restored shortly, though there's a conspicuous lack of a promised timeline. As the outage drags on, though, the apologetic messages become more and more vague about what's being done to fix it, promising only that they are giving the matter their full attention.

There was a time when the world did not rely on the internet to function, and there are worlds where that's still the case. Here and now, though, it's becoming more and more clear how heavily everyone relies on those connections.

➥ Without a Trace

(cw: reality warping, memory loss, potential for gaslighting or misperceptions of self or reality)

Memory is such a delicate thing. It shapes everything from interactions to perception to sense of self, and yet can be malleable to all sorts of things: our conviction, another’s perception, or even injury.

It might not be noticeable at first, when the changes come. It might be little things here and there, barely worth commenting on like a misplaced pen. Maybe you don’t remember that restaurant being there….yet when you step inside, they greet you like you’ve been a regular for months. Maybe that coworker you’ve been chatting with daily is now a stranger. Maybe your best friend slowly fades out of thought and mind. Even if you knew them before arriving here.

Do you even remember the world you came from anymore? Do you truly?

For other people,it might be instantaneous. Waking up one morning reveals things aren’t as they should be, as friends and worlds simply vanish from your thoughts. There’s no rhyme or reason or promise that those who so adamantly claim to know you aren't simply lying. After all, everyone knows how insidious this place can be. Why….you’ve been here longer than most, haven’t you? You’d surely know better.

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play background NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompts should be sufficient and ordinary people will act like… ordinary people! Although, the people of Gloucester seem to be becoming more and more aware of supernatural phenomenon and they are frightened by it. You're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. Also, please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
  
  
• MISINFORMED (16 January - Ongoing) - The books/newspapers/printed materials are simply gone from Gloucester. No amount of searching will dig them up, unfortunately. It's clearly some supernatural force that's removed them. The evidence of a break-in to their residence/wherever they're keeping their things will vary from very obvious to subtle, depending on what might invoke the most dread in a particular individual. ADI personnel will be particularly on alert at HQ as there seems to be evidence of a break-in there, as well, even if they can't trace the source.
  
  Characters will need to reacquire things if they lost them from their personal library, and the Gloucester (and ADI) libraries being short on materials from 2020 will be an ongoing issue for the foreseeable future as replacements are tracked down. Characters who wish to volunteer are free to create whatever money-making endeavors they see fit. ADI leadership will be disapproving due to the potential danger associated with community outreach like that, but they're not going to actively stop anyone. Players are welcome to say their efforts are successful, but they should not be raising tens of thousands of dollars here. The locals of Gloucester are middle class for the most part, but they don't have that kind of spending money. Those who wish to investigate Dogtown, instead, are encouraged to submit search requests on the Dogtown Search page.
  
  
• MISPLACED (17-31 January) - The shards have been flung improbably far afield with characters able to find them all over the park. It's not just people in the park at the moment who seem to have been hit with the shards, either. Teams might find themselves knocking on doors after spotting shattered windows or the like, only to find people who can't seem to be bothered to do anything about the damage or their situation. The apathy effect vanishes once the shard is removed from a person, but holding it will produce a lower grade apathy as well as a sense of emptiness in the person holding it. Smashing the crystals into smaller pieces will just scatter low-grade apathy across the ground for anyone to track into their homes.
  
  
• MISSED CONNECTIONS (17-31 January) - Any access to internet or phone services during this period will require a long drive out of town to reach an area beyond the spread of the outage. There's no physical cause for the outage to be found–anyone who travels out to find out what's happening with the effects to restore the internet will find the service providers just as baffled and frustrated as anyone else.
  
  
• WITHOUT A TRACE (17-31 January) - Any memory can be lost, from the details of a person’s world, to their friends and family, or even lovers. How quickly the changes take is up to player discretion, but the changes can be reversed through reminders of attachments to other people, places, or things. Help from those close to people is encouraged! On the other hand, players are welcome to keep any memory losses they would like; however, any formative memories that are lost that would drastically change a character's personality from their canon presentation will be returned at the conclusion of the event. Permanent losses can be important memories, but please refer to Rule #4 in Apocalypse How's ruleset. "Characterization must be consistent with canon/the original story the character is from, when taking into account in-game developments. Characters should be recognizable as the character throughout their tenure in the game."
  
  

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Misplaced - OTA

[abrightboy]

Malcolm needs something to occupy his mind and hands, so he volunteers to go look for this artifact. He doesn't bring a friend. What friend would he bring? There's only really Neal that he could ask and after the spider hands? ...Neal can't be in danger like that.

He's trying to pull a shard embedded tightly in a tree out when it comes loose and he falls backwards. A shard is embedded in his forearm. That's inconvenient. He'd better..... something.

He's walking through the park, carrying the shard he recovered from the tree, but at some point he just... lets it fall out of his hand into the grass. Maybe he'll just call it a day and go home.

He wanders into B1 with the thought of cleaning up the wound, which is aching dully. Maybe it's bleeding; he doesn't really know and it seems like an awful lot of effort to lift up his arm and look.

He does shrug out of his button down shirt and trousers, getting into an oversized sweater and sweatpants. That's better. And that's what he's still wearing the next day when he wanders into the office around 11am or so in flipflops. And later in the afternoon when he goes to the coffee shop instead of going back to his desk. And the day after that, when he doesn't go in to the office at all. What's the point of that?

[You can find Malcolm at the ADI offices on the 18th, somewhere in town most of the rest of the month or, if you're looking for him - or living with him - at his apartment B1 for most of the rest of the month as well.]

[lobster_bib]

As eager as Jesus is to be useful, to get to work, he's brand new. He's still figuring out how to even get home by curfew--a thing he's never had in his life. (Well, he did, but he never observed it).

He sees Malcolm the first time at a glimpse, passing in a hallway. He glances but by then Malcolm has turned a corner and he thinks he just imagined it.

But then he sees the man again in a coffee shop where he'd ducked in to get warm, to get his bearings, and again he has the surreal sense that he's hallucinating. He's seen his own face only in reflections in dirty windows and a tiny shaving mirror for the past twelve years, and Malcolm is younger--seems younger.

But it is him. A clean-cut, more civilized version of himself.

And he doesn't seem like he's doing well, so Jesus buys his coffee and then makes his way over to Malcolm's table. "Hey," he says, brow furrowed, like he's not sure the man is even really there. "You okay?"

[myfavoritemurder]

"It's freezing," Callisto says, giving his flipflops a meaningful glance when she comes across him at headquarters. Her tone isn't exactly concerned, but rather mildly surprised, and clearly inviting further explanation: it's freezing, so what the hell is he doing dressed like that? Even she has a coat and snowpants on over her armor.

[clavesregni]

Caitlyn has momentarily vacated the apartment for a change of scenery. And because she's vaguely unsettled by the fact that someone seems to have made their way into her apartment and stolen a few things from her.

She's got a notebook and several bundles of loose paper clutched to her chest as she enters the coffee shop. When she spots Malcolm, she abandons her plan to order a coffee and sequester herself in the back corner of the shop for a while, and instead approaches him.

"Malcolm! It's good to see you! I was just going over some information on the recent spate of burglaries. All of the material taken pertains to the year 2020. I wonder why that is? Do you suppose someone's covering something up? Or collecting information for themselves? Or perhaps this is all a red herring and the thief was looking for some specific book or document." She sits and looks at him eagerly, awaiting any insights he might have.

[conning]

The first night, Neal doesn't worry too much more than he already has been. He doesn't know that Malcolm went out to help look for the shards, or he would be. No, he's distracted by the sense of closeness to the Lonely, the way it seems to hover on the edge of actually speaking to him whenever he's alone. It makes his skin crawl.

The next day, he notices that Malcolm hasn't changed clothes, and his concern ratchets up a notch. He tries to suggest that maybe Malcolm should talk to someone, a therapist, one of those people that Malcolm thinks will do Neal so much good. It's about then that he realizes he hasn't told Malcolm that he actually got a diagnosis from those people, but now doesn't seem the time.

The day after that, he tries to bring Malcolm coffee at his desk. He was going to carefully suggest a play the next evening. Malcolm's not there.

The panic is absolutely visceral.

He texts Malcolm about ten times between the offices and the apartment, busting through the front door out of breath and wide-eyed with worry.

Donatello | Rise of the TMNT

[semilethal]

MISINFORMED

[Donnie isn't very keen to go into Dogtown, but can be persuaded by existing CR that might want to go, especially if a) he doesn't know/think they are combatants and he likes them, or b) if Leo is going or has already gone in.

Otherwise, he has very little interest in helping out, other than vague musings on whether or not it being the year 2020 that disappearing having anything to do with his own home-world things (RE: Krang invasion).]

MISPLACED

[While Donnie doesn't necessarily hold himself firmly to the morality (or legality) of entities with whom he is not concerned, he is...in trouble. Neil Grace is an unknown factor and Donnie doesn't much care about his opinion, but he is also an Old Guy and he was very Disappointed, which could translate into thinking Donnie is not a genius or an asset to whatever cause he devotes himself to. That part, specifically, is what Donnie has a problem with. So, while he's got this security detail in the form of an ADI suit following him around as a witness, obviously he's going to get the most shards and bring them in as proof. See? He's useful. So give him his access back, and then give him more.

Perhaps it's a mistake then to forgo working in a team, as the security detail just watches from afar to make sure Donnie isn't about to commit some more crimes, and apparently has to deal with his own problems.]

A. [Regardless of whether or not someone is already talking to any of the afflicted, Donnie will just march right up to the civilian and start checking around them for any wounds or shards. He's not here to chit chat or make friends, he's here to collect shards in a repurposed glass bottle.] Could you move?

B. [After a day of picking up shards, Donnie has an impressive collection in his glass bottle. Said bottle is thankfully closed firm, but is on its side next to his leg as he sits in the middle of a grassy patch at the park, hunched over and looking equal parts exhausted and listless. He doesn't look up at passers by, and hardly moves.

In fact, if he's not interrupted, eventually he takes off the hoodie he'd been wearing (since he's out in general public), and reaches up to tap a button on one of the hooks on his purple battle shell. It releases with a hiss of hydraulics, falling from his slightly bruised shoulders to lay on the ground. His leathery speckled soft shell is at least getting some air, though Donnie just lays down on his side and curls up, uncaring. This is likely not terribly alarming to strangers, but to anyone who has seen him even in passing knows that he is never without his armored shell.

It is also sort of cold, and Donnie's just...up and on the chilly ground with just some jeans he'd thrown on haphazardly as a 'disguise.' He doesn't seem inclined to move though, even as the sun begins to set.]

MISSED CONNECTIONS

[So Donnie can recognize that "I very seriously need internet or I will have a meltdown" is kind of a selfish thing to say when hospitals are trying to communicate in order to treat patients so he manages to hold it in for all of a week.

But the longer they go without service, the jumpier he gets. Anybody who bumps into him at either Block B or Block D ADI apartment blocks may be subjected to nervous chattering, jumping, watching as he scratches at his arms. He's snappy and not at all apologetic for it. He even tries to parkour around some of the buildings in an attempt to give his security detail the slip...because he plans to hotwire a car and drive into a service area if he can get away for long enough. Help him?

Or perhaps you run into Donnie at the grocery store. Maybe even if you look desperate or hungry enough, he might just stare for a while before just handing you his own meager bag of groceries before turning and leaving without another word, rubbing at his scratched up arms and hands.]

WITHOUT A TRACE

[Donatello's sitting on the front steps of ADI, staring off into the middle distance. His massive brow is scrunched more than usual, because something's wrong. There are gaps.

He never has gaps, and there...there are too many gaps.]

without a trace!!

[ruevealing]

[It's been a day, but even while Rue finds themself struggling with their own memories, they can't help the way Donatello's sitting on the front steps catches their immediate attention.]

Donnie?

[They step forward carefully, concern in their eyes.]

My dear, are you alright?

Missed Connections, cw for a dead bird!

[thefinalpower]

[ When Power bumps into Donnie, somewhere in the vicinity of the Block B apartments, she's gripping a whole-ass dead pigeon in her mouth, in much the same way that a housecat would proudly carry a dead mouse. Look, she's carrying shopping bags, her hands are full, and the internet outage and subsequent difficulty in finding groceries has affected everybody differently!

To her credit, she does mutter a quick apology (months of living with Aki paid off!), but the effect is ruined: because of the pigeon it just comes out as a muffled "mrghpf". ]

without a trace

[neonleon]

[He hates. HATES hates haaaaaaaaaaaaaaates not having phone or internet access. Even worse that he "can't" use his ninpo to track his brother down. So he finds DOnnie on the front steps looking.... Bad.]

Hey. Having internet withdrawals?

misplaced - b

[energyfieldgood]

[The first thing Rodney thinks is that this is the wrong place for them to meet.

Of course the statistical probability of seeing him around ADI or around town is quite high but for some reason, the thought has never crossed his mind until now. In a way, Donnie has become part of the inventory. Rodney wouldn't go as far as having gotten used to his presence but it has been a tolerable addition, a sort of background noise that he has arranged himself with and... well. He actually enjoys having conversations with someone who can keep up.

But it's strange - wrong - weird to see him outside of the apartment.

Should he... say something? He really doesn't want to? It's cold and it's getting late and he's really hungry and it's probably just a teenage thing lying in the dirt like that.

Maybe he would have left it at that. If it wasn't for the gear. Maybe he hasn't known the prodigy for that long but there is a carelessness about the gear next to him that immediately strikes Rodney as so odd and uncharacteristic he can't bring himself to ignore it.]

You better find someone to hose you down because you are not dragging all that dirt into the workspace.

[A frown.]

Are you in some kind of reptile freeze?

Misplaced B

[heyunderoos]

[Peter doesn't know Donnie super well yet, but the usually fairly energetic turtle just... laying on the ground is more than a little weird.

Peter shoves what shards he's collected, bagged and vaguely numbered into his lingering security detail's hands before he makes his way over to the turtle.

He can tell both sets of security detail are giving the two teenagers A Look for being together, but Peter doesn't really care. He's more focused on his sort of accomplice in crime, sort of friend.]

Donnie-? Are you okay-?

Kate Cordello - Original

[bossyboiler]

『 You know what they say about hindsight? It's 2020. 』- Closed to Bucky Barnes and Yelena Belova
Misinformed - January 18th

It's a day and a half before she notices that anything is amiss.

As good of a baker that she is, she still relies on cookbooks. Why? Baking is an exact science. One mistake and a person could be left with a subpar baked good. Kate wants to be the best at baking, she wants to win.

She also wants to win at being the best baking instructor. She is currently teaching her two roommates and how to cook and bake. They are progressing wonderfully but it's time to bump up to the next skill level. Yelena can't bake cookies forever nor can Winter just keep continuing to make pasta dishes. They could, she supposes, but then their skills would grow stagnant.

Her cookbooks are kept atop the refrigerator, standing upright thanks to two elephant-shaped bookends. She looks at each of the titles and frowns when she doesn't find her book on deserts. Kate firmly believes that there is a place for everything and everything should be kept in its place. So where is the book? It is very much unlike herself to just leave it lying around.

She looks in the common living space first and has no luck. Kate then searches her bedroom where she keeps a very small collection of books. Those books are her light reading. Books she has bought because the cover looked fun or the title caught her eye. They were fun novels, all of them paperbacks. She doesn't have many and notices immediately that two are missing.

In her mind she runs through all the possible explanations for why her books could be missing. She doesn't believe that her roommates would have taken her chick lit books. Just as she would never enter their rooms, she knows for a fact that they would never enter hers. The cookbook, however? Well. Maybe Winter had wanted to borrow it for his own reasons? Maybe he had decided to take some initiative and bake something on his own or was at least thinking about it? She doesn't know.

"Hey guys?" She calls out. "Any one of you seen my desert cookbook?"

『 I stood on a shard of glass just now. It was a bit of a pane. 』- OTA
Misplaced - January 17th to January 31st

"You want me to go where now and do what?" She asks the person standing in front of her. They are currently in ADI HQ. Kate has just been asked if she wants to go and collect shards from the park and from people.

Had she heard them correctly?

『 Not only is my short term memory terrible... but so is my short term memory. 』 - OTA
Without a Trace - January 17th to January 31st

It happens here and there. She can't remember what she was doing or any questions relating to it that start with a W. It's frustrating. It's mind-boggling. Despite the fact that she will turn thirty this year, age has nothing to do with the memory loss.

It happens everywhere. One time she is standing in line at Any Beans Necessary and she forgets what she had been about to order. Relying on public transportation, Kate misses the bus back to her apartment and has to wait for the next one. Sometimes she be found at ADI headquarters, standing there with her eyes wide for she has yet again forgotten something. It's aggravating.

"I'm sorry. What did you just ask me?" Kate blinks at the person before her. They had asked her something but for the life of her, she just can't remember. It gets that bad.

The most embarrassing moment, however, is when she knocks on the door to apartment A4 where she is meant to have a date with Adam on the nineteenth. She raises her hand and knocks like a normal person. However, when someone opens the door she can't remember why she's there. She feels like her brain is turning to mush.

What is she supposed to do about it?

Misinformed

[musicdied]

There's the sound of Yelena's door opening, and she leans out, bright blue resistance band dangling idly from the hand that's not braced on the frame. Her brow furrows slightly, and she glances towards the top of the fridge where...there's definitely the wrong number of books.

"No," she says. "Not to notice it, at least, since the last time you had it down to bake with."

Which is a somewhat distressing realization - she's become so used to Kate's books that she can't say for certain the last time she actually saw it. She can't recall the last time anything had been familiar enough to just be a normal part of the background.

Without a Trace

[easilyamused]

Methos is expecting her, so the wait for the door to open is only a couple of seconds. It shouldn't be long enough to lose track of what she's doing.

A lot of things that happen in Gloucester shouldn't, in any reasonable world, happen the way they do.

"Come in, you're right on time," he says, with a warm smile of welcome. The expression falters a little when he takes note of the wide-eyed look of confusion - like she's not sure why she's there, or perhaps not sure where she is at all. "--Kate? Are you all right?"

Lt. Col. John Sheppard | Stargate: Atlantis | OTA

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

cw: PTSD, paranoia, contagious disease/illness, violence, mention of induced madness, mild body horror

I. Missed Connections -

Having lived in Antarctica and then going immediately into an expedition to another galaxy with little to no chance of getting back to earth had prepared John for living in an less-than-ideal state of rapid communication. Even when they did connect back to earth, the early 00's wasn't as...dependent on the internet as now.

He comes from the land of DVDs, basically.

So in an attempt to bolster morale (as well as his own morale) he's going around personally inviting people to watch movies. Scrounging up what he could from the nearest thrift shops had left him with a collection that was...wanting, but right now it was all they had.

You may find John approaching you with a bowl of freshly-popped popcorn and a handful of DVDs presented to you anywhere within ADI grounds or the apartments in the evenings. Yes, he's sneaking into empty offices to watch movies during the workday. What of it?

"Pick your poison. I've got Sharknado, Speed 2, the Phantom Menace, and Legally Blonde."

II. Without a Trace -

Part A -

It started insidiously. Walking into a room and forgetting why he was there, misplacing a pen, a couple of confused words, all things that could happen on any normal day.

But the thing is, he's been here before. There was a disease that ravaged Atlantis, one that had robbed people of all their memories, leaving them in a confused, amnesiac state, that had nearly destroyed the expedition. Some parts of it were fuzzy but he remembers what it was like, knowing nothing, the panic, confusion, the horror, pointing a gun at Ronon and being prepared to shoot him--

--it can't be happening again. It just can't. He's probably just imagining things, and maybe that situation had scared him badly deep down so he was just overly cautious--

--but the next time he found himself down the road with absolutely no memory of how he got there, he takes action immediately. He makes notes, plans, takes pictures--and as he's running around ADI or the town, if he sees you, he'll immediately let you know--

"There's something causing memory loss--you need to prepare yourself. Write a note, take a video, anything!"

Part B -

It's gone. It's all gone and he knows...things, he knows that the sky is blue and how gravity works and how to read and do math, but he doesn't know who he is. John is wandering around buildings, streets, looking terrified, confused, worried.

There's notes all over his pockets, a few things scribbled on his hands. He stops by a tree or a wall, wringing his hands, remembering to look in his pockets from time to time.

He takes out a Polaroid. It's a picture of Rodney McKay. On the bottom of the Polaroid, there's a scribbled note.

Find Rodney McKay. IMPORTANT!!!

"Have you seen this man?" John holds the picture up if someone passes by, frantic.

Part C - [OOC Note: Please only take this one if your character is able to convinced not to spill the beans to ADI. Thanks!]

Little did amnesiac!John know, that original!John has been feeding his favorite Entity quite regularly, so his cat-like abilities and claws were always readily accessible (after their encounter with the Stars in Dogtown, he refuses to be any length of time without them). So when Amnesiac John gets startled, well--

--out comes the claws as he jumps wildly back. Maybe he's latched onto a wall. Maybe he's latched onto your face.

He's just as surprised as you are.

"What the hell!?"

III. Wildcard - Anything goes!
[OOC: Will match format! See here for plotting!]

I. Missed Connections

[semilethal]

[Looks over from where he's doing BITCHWORK blowing dust out of a half-gutted desktop tower with a can of air, eyeballing John's face, and then his choices.

Reaches out.

Hovers over that sci-fi lookin' one with the alien-lookin' lady and the spaceships (???) at the bottom.

...bypasses and plucks 'Legally Blonde' from his hands and flips it over to read the back.] Hmm. Nice. She's got moxy.

delloso de la rue | dimension 20 | ota

[ruevealing]

i. [misplaced] somewhere in slumber is someone who didn't see it coming

[After their last casual stroll into Dogtown, Rue will adamantly insist on staying behind for this adventure.

That being said, the owlbear can be found - glamoured, naturally - tending to any wounds or general distress in Dr. Carter's medical tent. Rue might not yet be an expert at nursing hurts without the use of their healing magic, but they can clean and wrap an injury like a pro, all thanks to the good doctor's training.

What they haven't been trained on, however, is the true nature of those shards and just how strong a hold the apathy they inflict has on a person...]

ii. [without a trace] if all this leaves you behind and everything starts to rewind
[cw: lost memories]

[In the end, Rue supposes that BINX was right. The large, fiery feeling of disappointment and utter heartbreak is all that Rue has left.

Where any other day the owlbear could be found warmly greeting friends and cheerily inquiring about their afternoons, there's a new apprehension in Rue's expression as they wander ADI on this particular day, a near constant pinch to their feathery brow. It doesn't matter who it is they meet during their slow, meandering walk along the grounds or through the halls, Rue's dark, unblinking gaze simply stares ahead as they remain lost in their thoughts, trying desperately to piece together the fractured memories that remain.

But no matter how they try to make sense out of their time here in Gloucester - they've been in this place for three months? No, that couldn't possibly be right. They were just back in Faerie. How could it have been more than a day or two? They can't remember being here for longer - it always come back to the same breaking point: the confrontation with Major Hob and the ensuing heartbreak that followed.

Not only has their admission of love gone utterly unacknowledged - Hob is too much of a gentleman to even give them a proper rejection, apparently - but it is completely apparent that Hob's already moved on, more concerned with playing into this new political farce with the Seelie Court.

So consumed in their thoughts and the worrying gaps of their memory, perhaps Rue accidentally bumps into a familiar face or is stopped by someone who can read the obvious worry in their face. Either way, it may take a moment to fully grab the owlbear's attention.]

iii. [wildcard] it doesn't mean anything / you won't remember what you see

[Don't see something you like? Let me know! We can chat about specific prompts! hmu here or over at meyggy!]

i. [misplaced]

[semilethal]

[Where is that dang- there it is. Donnie makes a beeline for the medical tent, his own ADI suit-shadow trailing after him after being no help at all, and flips open the canvas dramatically before spotting Rue. Heads right over, sits himself on their bench, and holds out his hand. ...a hand that doesn't look bloody or otherwise injured.] I have incurred a wound.

[OH okay, it's that tiny splinter underneath one of his nails.]

Power | Chainsaw Man

[thefinalpower]

MISPLACED

[ Power's just. She's just lying face-down in the grass, clutching a small ziploc baggie of crystal shards. She won't move if approached, and the only sound that people will be able to get out of her at first is a noncommittal grunt. If someone tries to nudge her, she groans. ]

Leave me beeee...


MISSED CONNECTIONS

[ Power's from 1997, the internet wasn't exactly a thing back home, so she doesn't feel it's loss very acutely at first. In fact, Power will take any opportunity to laugh the situation off; humans are so fragile without their telephones and electronics, it's a wonder that any of them manage to survive at all! How pitiful!

This cockiness lasts right up until she tries to buy some boxed sushi at the grocery store, and her debit card is declined. Power tries to bulldoze her way through the situation on sheer bullshit ("The machine beeped! 'Tis truth!"), and her blatant refusal of the reality at hand almost gets her kicked out of the grocery store before she finally makes a tactful retreat, minus the sushi.

... No matter. Modern amenities are a nice perk of human society (especially the delicious perks), but Power is no flimsy human, she's a beautiful, fearsomely terrifying Devil - well, technically a Fiend, but whatever, those are mere semantics - and all she's ever really needed to survive is blood. The food that comes alongside it is negotiable.

Within a week, Power has started hunting whatever wildlife can be found in the gutters and alleyways of Gloucester. Raccoons flee at the sight of her, rats scatter at her approach, and as for pigeons... between terrorizing the rodent population and the local raccoons (stray cats are notably off-limits!), Power has accumulated enough fear-juice to form a small spike of blood that shoots from her palm, spearing a nearby pigeon to the wall of an alleyway. If approached, she'll turn and growl: ]

The bird is mine! Find your own!


WITHOUT A TRACE - closed to Steve!

[ Her new abode is... adequate. Well, if Power were truthful, which she rarely is, she'd admit that this new apartment is actually pretty nice, despite the strange circumstances of her arrival. She gets her own room - although the bed is strange, compared to a futon - the kitchen has more space, there's a nice view from the balcony. Compared to the little shoebox that she used to share with... with...

... What was his name again?

Power goes ghostly pale, and drops her bag with a sharp little gasp.

Whenever Steve arrives home, he'll find his new roomie tearing the living room apart, flinging couch cushions aside, rooting through drawers, and swiping aside anything that may be on the coffee table. If Steve looks down the hallway, he'll see that the door to Power's room has been left open, and the walls are covered in chicken scratch that repeats 'DENJI IS MY BUDDY! DENJI IS MY BUDDY!' across the walls, over and over and over again. The mess has even started to reach down the hallway. When Power whirls around to face him, there's a manic gleam in her weird crosshair-pupiled eyes. ]

You! Human! Have you any markers? This one has run dry!

missed connections

[friendsfordinner]

[ Look, Hickey's not averse to eating...less than ideal sources of food to stay alive. He ate a dog once. And now that he's finding just how inconvenient the modern world is in some aspects (pay people in cash! what the fuck?), there's a part of him that's decided to just ignore the chaos and ignore the long lines and try to use his new Hunt-given tracking powers to find some food of his own.

(He also has absolutely considered eating stray cats, sorry Power.)

This time, he's on the trail of a pigeon, entering the alleyway in order to catch the bird...when he sees it spiked to the wall thanks to Power. ]

I was trailing that! [ he huffs. ] You sniped my catch!

Caitlyn Kiramman | Arcane | OTA

[clavesregni]

I. Misinformed

[The police are investigating another break-in. Is it to do with all the other break-ins that have been plaguing Gloucester lately, resulting in stolen books and papers? Caitlyn doesn't know, but she's lurking around hoping to find out.

The police officers are as annoyed and dismissive of her as they always are, but once they've gone inside, she sneaks up to the front of the building. The first window she tries is locked from the inside, but the next window is unlatched. She cracks it open and settles in underneath it, her entire attention fixed on the deciphering the faint conversation inside. She's paying no attention to anyone who may be coming up the street behind her.]


II. Missed Connections

[Caitlyn – too rich to have ever touched money or run errands before arriving in Gloucester – has spent six months dealing with the unending tedium that is receiving a paycheck, tallying one's total earnings, going to the shops and purchasing the humdrum necessities of life, and subtracting from her earnings the cost of those necessities to ensure that she doesn't outspend her means. And she has been getting used to it, even if standing in line at the grocery store still makes her irritable in a way she can't entirely explain or quantify.

But now, as the days trickle on and the money dwindles, her nerves are becoming more and more frayed. She finds herself silently fuming in the pasta aisle with not a single box of dried pasta left in sight. The other aisles are similarly barren.]

This is... [All she can do for several seconds is sputter.] unbelievable!


III.Without a Trace

[At first, she thinks it's stress. She can't remember where she put a sheet of paper, or which is her preferred table in the ADI library. But as the days go on, there are more and more gaps, more things lost, more faces unremembered.

Find her standing frozen outside the hardware store experiencing an emotion she doesn't understand while looking at a display of hammers in the window. There are tears pricking the corners of her eyes as she struggles to remember someone. She's not sure who, she only knows she misses him.

Or find her in the coffee shop, where she's gobsmacked by the barista writing her phone number on Caitlyn's coffee cup, and even more gobsmacked when the barista tells her, Look, if you're gonna act like you don't even know who I am after all these months, maybe you should find a different coffee place.]

ii

[ruevealing]

[Finally!! Someone understands how difficult it is for the former rich people out there.

Rue is still new enough to all of this that the novelty of shopping isn't quite lost to them yet, but the excitement behind it is certainly killed when there's simply nothing available to purchase. Still, they take their time even in the crowded panic of the store, to wander up and down the long aisles. Lucky for them, their partner is just about the opposite of picky when it comes to food, so a spare tin or two of sardines or spam here might actually work, even if it isn't exactly up to Rue's standards.

Naturally, they're glamoured when they come across Caitlyn, their human disguise taking the form of a petit frame with sharp features, dressed in a long, fitted peacoat with sleek gloves.]

Do you mean the dwindling supply? [Rue's gaze slides along the barren shelves, mouth pinching tightly at the sight.] It's getting worser by the day. Is this normal for stores like these? I'm afraid I don't have a clue.

Eda Clawthorne | The Owl House | OTA

[edalyn]

I. Misplaced (OTA)

While Eda has been working on a wardrobe that actually fits her harpy form, she hasn’t really bothered with figuring out shoes. Normally this isn’t an issue–her bird feet and talons are tough enough that she really doesn’t need them.

Unfortunately, while it would be hard for the crystal shard she steps on to actually cut her, through a stroke of sheer bad luck it manages to wedge itself between her talon and her skin. Apparently, that’s enough.

Eda sits down on a bench and… just kind of stays there. She was supposed to be doing something–getting the crystal shards out of the humans here. She’s already found and helped with a few. But honestly, why bother? What difference does it really make? What difference does anything really make?

II. Missed Connections (OTA)

Despite being from a magical fantasy world, Eda is one of the people who doesn't love the fact the internet is down. The Boiling Isles had things like scrolls and Penstagram, after all. Local cell phones were a surprisingly small adjustment, all things considered. And she likes being able to talk to people without necessarily leaving her room or seeing them. Not to mention that she'd been getting really into some addictive mobile game or another.

On the other hand, it turns out to be lucky that she prefers to have money in cash. She doesn't like a constant record of where she's spending it; whether this is for particularly shady reasons or because the ADI just doesn't need to know how much she may or may not spend on vodka is anyone's guess–which is exactly how she likes it.

She also doesn't like the idea that it's held in a system she doesn't fully understand or control, especially with so many of the strange things that happen with the network–and these cybersecurity courses. As such, between generally taking her ADI pay out of the bank and, recently, the clothing based side hustle, Eda has a fair bit of cash just kind of stuffed under her nest.

And now she's using it to, apparently, stock up on canned meat. Normally supplies running low wouldn't be a huge issue for her, but she's trying to keep the owl beast content without feeding the Hunt

She's already shoved a good few steaks in the freezer at Bonnie's but today, as the outage has been dragging on, you'll be able to spot her in a grocery store holding roughly nine cans of spam and possibly growling.

III. Without a Trace (mid jan, open to all existing CR)
(note: not planning to do permanent memory loss for this event)

Eda's on campus today, for whatever reason, heading either to or from work or perhaps grabbing coffee before the ADI runs out of the stuff.

She seems a bit distracted; perhaps that's why the harpy simply brushes past you in the hall, or barely looks up from where she's sitting. She's not always the most social person, anyway.

But if you talk to her like you know her, she'll give you a puzzled look, head tilted to the side like she's trying to recall something and long, feathery ears folding back a little.

“Sorry, uh, you new here?”

Worse, try to touch her and if you’re lucky, you’ll get a stern glare as opposed to getting bitten.

Wildcard
Feel free to throw me a starter or hit me up for one! necromancatrix + Ilya#4143

iii

[ruevealing]

Even while Rue's memories are struggling to fill in the numerous blank spaces left by the removal of a certain goblin, all of the friends they've made since setting foot in Gloucester remain. Which is why the owlbear is quick to move to Eda the moment they see the woman, quickly seeking out one of the very few people Rue knows they can seek comfort in.

But upon calling out to her, Eda response simply leaves Rue blinking owlishly back at her.

"Your jokes are usually much funnier."

lilith ★ chilling adventures of sabrina

[sathan]

★ misinformed.

( even without the call about the books lilith would have found herself in the library, though she's wishing now that she'd gone there before the books had been taken. externally, her purpose there appears to be to help recover the books, though she's really rather more interested in a specific section of books and if any of those were taken... well, if she finds them they might not quite make it back to the library.

so she's poking at the shelves, idly pulling titles off to look at them before replacing them, looking particularly bored as she waits nearby the desk )

Better record keeping would allow you to know what was taken quicker.

( it's not said to anyone in particular and even if the record keeping were perfect she doesn't yet know what was missing, hence the irritated and bored routine )

★ misplaced.

Are you going to take it?

( they'd gotten the information, gone there either together or independently, arriving at the location where the crystal had shattered. she wished that she knew more about it but that would have to come later after she'd found some way of accessing her magic... preferably without getting more involved in any of the entity business. but for now that crystal was curious and she wanted her hands on it. preferably without actually having to put her hands on it )

It did seem like we should take it back with us.

★ wildcard.

i'm also happy for some general other 'around town' meetings, maybe they're taking a break from other searches etc. can also throw in some memory shenanigans in any of the prompts, though none on lilith's side as it wouldn't be so impactful with her being new. or got an idea in mind but not sure what to do? pm and we'll figure it out ♥

Misplaced

[abrightboy]

No [He reaches out a hand towards her.] Actually. I came here to stop people from taking them. I... had a bad experience with one. It's too dangerous to just send people out here for them. They whisper like the Entities.

Cortana | Halo | OTA

[failedpromise]

A) Misinformed

Cortana doesn't really have much of anything from 2020, so her room, at least, is free of tampering.

The apartment common area is a mess at the best of times and she doesn't go into anyone's room without good reason, so she doesn't immediately notice anything wrong.

She's been following the news though. She'd found an old May 2020 issue of a magazine at a thrift store and stored it in a lockbox in her desk at work assuming that, as with many strange occurrences, the effect would make its way to Gloucester.

...So maybe she shouldn't be surprised when she comes in one morning to find her workspace completely trashed. And yet.

"Dammit!" It doesn't take her long to find the destroyed lockbox and yeah, her magazine is clearly gone. "Bad enough that they need to steal it, but they at least could have left everything else alone."

She's going to have to clean all of this, isn't she?

B) Missed Connections

The internet is gone.

She's fortunate, perhaps, that she's no longer able to even access the internet the way an AI normally would, because the outage could have really hurt her otherwise.

As it is, well, she's basically useless (at least it feels that way) and has no money!

Alternately listless and restless, she attempts to fill her time with research and journaling, but it's not enough. Nor is cleaning the apartment, organizing her stuff, or joining the patrols around Dogtown.

Maybe it would be better if she could actually help with fixing the internet, but this is clearly a service problem and she has no access to the infrastructure.

And so eventually, she sinks back into her old ways of entertaining herself. Namely, crimes.

It starts with her roommates getting low on coffee. She has a tiny amount of change but it's not enough even for the cheap stuff that comes in a can, and she begins to wonder if she could just...

And well, when her shoplifting is a success she gets a bit bolder. Not everything she does is strictly criminal - lots of snooping, sneaking, and eavesdropping going on as well - but she is definitely up to all sorts of annoying mischief and poking her nose where it doesn't belong. Reading a book? She's just going to peer over your shoulder. Having a private conversation? Be careful to watch for eavesdropping robots. Left a journal or a diary or some other interesting but decidedly private thing lying around? She's just gonna help herself to your juicy secrets.

Bad AI is bad, basically.

C) Without a trace

It happens early one morning, after leaving the apartment but before entering the workplace. One moment Cortana is 11 years old and working for an organization in a different universe, the next she's seven teetering into rampancy aboard a derelict with her only company being -

"Chief?" He's gone? What - how - where? She stumbles, falls to the ground, cries out in alarmed surprise at the sensation of gravity. Stares at herself. "Wha-?"

She's ...human? No - that's not possible. Robot? But how?

Someone's approaching. The sound snaps her back to reality and she whirls around. "Chi-"

No. Not him. But who? Did they do this? Her anger flares, seemingly without reason, and she awkwardly attempts to lunge.

"Where is he?!"

Missed Connections

[cuttypie]

Luka is so busy these days he doesn’t really get much time for himself, what with the endless charting and manual everything in medical—luckily, he’s used to paper charting, so it isn’t too big of a change for him, it’s just annoying when it takes more time.

He probably shouldn’t have taken a chart with him out of medical but he was starving and he’s never gonna get these done, so he’s scarfing down a sandwich in the canteen as he hastily writes a few notes in the chart. He sits with his back to the wall, to avoid any prying eyes.

Totally HIPPA-compliant.

Awake Remembrance Of These Valiant Dead | The Locked Tomb Series

[rarelybecome]

cw: low-grade depression, definitely not her first food shortage.

MISSED CONNECTIONS

[ Fucking finally.

The words start thrumming in Wake's head, quiet and louder and louder, a day or so after the comms first start to go down. Hell if she's pleased to be vindicated, right, but it's the peace of the hissing airlock, the cocked trigger, the last egg dead; the calm thin certainty that everything's gone utterly to shit and at last, at godfucking last, you can leave off waiting for it.

It's always been so damned obvious this place was soft. Unguarded. Ripe to be snapped off at the stem. Shit, she could've rocked Gloucester on its axis with a car trunk's worth of chemicals and two hours' research in the public library, and she still knows fuck all.

Not that that would have given her any damned purpose. Not that knowing her ass from her elbow's even helped any too much -- she's been hoarding all the cash she can reasonably get her hands on, but it's all becoming a bit of a fucking hike to spend it on anything.

Still. Even lacking direction, she's gone even more restless than usual now shit's finally started to go sour. Too damned obvious the city's two hungry days out from a real free-for-all, the more so since fuck none of the locals have the first idea how to buckle down and wait.

Thus here she is in the thoroughly picked-over grocery store, eyes all but rolling out of her head as two red-faced and thoroughly unremarkable middle-aged men start squaring off in the wine and beer aisle over the last remaining six-pack of something deeply shitty-looking. Any minute now, one of them's going to throw a punch and probably break his fist; and while in theory the entertainment value on that is immeasurable, and while she'd honestly fucking love to pound them both into the shelving just to express her state of mind on it all, she actually does have no small experience of how fast and how bad this sort of shit can kick off once it does.

Someone's going to have to shut that down. Any minute now. Someone's going to have to shake the wrinkles out of their leadership skills.

Fuck, she hates it looking like that'll have to be her. ]

[setthetone]

[Maybe it doesn't have to be her.

Or, well.

Maybe it doesn't only have to be her. Because if one of the guys decides to throw a punch at him, Carter doesn't look like he'll be much of a match. Still, for the boyish looking beanstalk that he is, he's surprisingly quick to step in and try to intervene before it can come to an actual fight.

There's something about his approach that shows his experience with difficult or aggressive patients. In theory, he's doing everything right, voice assertive but not aggressive, body-language de-escalating, trying to get the guys to see reason without coming across as patronizing, trying to appeal to some sense of community.

Question is, will it be enough when tensions are already running so high.

Because he might need some help if it isn't.]

Luka Kovač | ER

[cuttypie]

Misplaced cw: depression, mild injury

Luka is just…standing there.

In the middle of the sidewalk, just staring.

If someone looks closer, there’s a smaller crystal shard embedded in his hand—he’s holding a medical bag in his other hand and it looks like he was in the process of helping someone when he got himself stuck with a shard. Hopefully whoever he was helping managed to get away, but he’s left there, too apathetic to even go back home.

It’s fine.

He’s fine.

Without a Trace - (If you’d like Luka to feed off your character, please check out the opt-in here.) cw: avatar feeding, induced fear and memory loss

It’s funny, the things that stick with you. The things you lose first.

Who you become when you don’t remember.

All he knows is that he’s hungry. And it’s so easy to feed.

It’s probably lucky that he still remembers to use his ability to briefly wipe memories after he feeds, or else there would have been quite the hubbub. But instead he’s smart about it. Staying to the shadows, picking off people who are by themselves. Giving them a good scare with his powers—his form shifting and twisting into their greatest fear courtesy of the Stranger—and then gently and politely wiping the memory of the encounter from their minds, leaving them with only their own, unsettled feelings.

Maybe it’s because of the Stranger he’s having trouble remembering who he is. Being all these different things for people, being all these different fears—it erodes his identity, makes him wonder who he is, what he is…maybe he’s all of the above.

Maybe he’s just lost himself.

It’s sunset and a good time for hunting. Luka finishes up with his latest victim—an old man, trembling, confused, having just seen the face of a doctor telling him his worst fears have come true—and then the encounter is gone, leaving him troubled, wandering away back down the street until he remembers that he was going home.

Luka smirks, a smile that’s a little too sharp. A little uncanny.

WITHOUT A TRACE

[rarelybecome]

Funny, how it all can break so suddenly. The details of how and why are different here, but nothing else really is. Not when it matters. You're queueing up somewhere, you're walking down the street, you're cleaning your guns, and there's the end of the world right before you.

Wake's walking down the street. Minding her own fucking business, thanks, on her way back from a two-helldamned-hour quest for cigarettes; she's not flirting with the habit again, fuck knows her wind isn't what it should be yet, she just -- well, face it, kiddie, you just want whatever you can't have -- she just wants one fucking packet for emergencies.

Two hours. If you were a skosh more on your game and infinitesimally less precious, girlie, you'd have grabbed all the cash you could get and bought the stores out the day after the net went down. Make your fucking fortune selling them on.

She's rounding a corner, hands shoved in her pockets against the cold, when something snags the corner of her eye. Flash of vivid red, almost the same shade as her own hair, which is plaited tightly back and not even beginning to wisp loose. And then it's gone, and the person standing there is a half-familiar man with a fucked-up fixed smile on his face.

"Help you, pal?" Bad, bad, bad idea. Every cell in her body from the base of the spine on up knows it's a bad idea, the special sort you don't get anywhere else. Good. She's wired up to fucking revel in it.

eddie munson | stranger things

[bardsofprey]

misplaced

[Eddie isn't taking any chances. He gears up to help with this one- bandana over the lower half of his face, thick gloves over his hands, and boots tied tight over his jeans. Not today, weird fuckin' behaviour altering magic shards.

He hangs around the park now and then throughout the month, unwilling to go in alone and assuming others will have seen the message and show up as well. He accidentally looks a little menacing, pacing and all covered up and antsy in the specific way that Eddie gets when he's forced to wait for something- but the image is ruined the second someone rocks up, and he sighs exaggeratedly, his entire body slumping over backwards. (It's so weird to be relieved and filled with dread at the same time.)]

Alright. Excellent. You wanna pair up?

[rarelybecome]

[ Fuck, why do half of them sound like kids. More or less fucking move like kids, come to think, which is what really makes the brain-stem flinch. Wake's fucking ten-year-old niece has her game face locked down tighter than half the people you see here. Knows her way round an automatic better than many, too.

Still. This one's had the basic common sense to gear up. Wake's dressed much the same, garden gloves and all, the bandana traded out for a neck gaiter wide enough to pull up over her nose before going in. (Which is setting all her nerves right on edge just now, anything that snug round the throat, but nothing to be done save breathe through it.) Eyes exposed, for the moment, which sets her even more on edge, but -- but. ]

Yeah, all right. Provided your ass isn't about to try and be a hero.

[ It's not said harshly. Anything but; not very far off from friendly, her mouth crooking into an ironic sidelong smile. ]