JANUARY MINGLE

[etrayamods]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: January 17th - January 23rd
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: The arrival of newcomers and some new construction!
NOTES\WARNINGS:

⏵ arrival ⏴ Welcome to Etraya! Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital. A coat rack is situated by the doors leading out of the hospital, covered in warm clothing that fits the new arrivals just right - whether it's to their preferred style or not is something else entirely. Some of them appear normal enough. Others? Well. Looks like someone was trying to improve on last month's designs. Outside the windows, the grass is covered in a couple of inches of loosely packed snow. We hope you enjoy your stay. ⏵ passion for fashion ⏴ As the newcomers find themselves leaving the hospital as per their usual arrival, they will find that not too far from it is a small boutique. Newly added, just as they have been, though they lack the context to know this. Companion bots will encourage them to go in and meet the particularly unique bot inside, dressed to the nines in line with the fashion the boutique itself is offering. While small, it's clearly been decorated to emphasize the loose era and taste of the particular fashion it's advertising. The building itself is also petite, and made to feel more personal rather than a commercial experience. It has a single dressing room, and outside of it has an area with mirrors where one might take in their lovely visage from nearly all angles. There is a little waiting area with seating in the front, for those who are not being molded through Theobold's vision, or simply waiting for whoever is. The tastes and aforementioned era of this little establishment is decidedly Victorian, with a bold splash of neon trimming, cog-like adornments, and other accessories that brighten up the otherwise neutral fabrics typically used in the style of dress. Theobold, as he has named himself and will not let anyone forget, has taken to a three-piece suit, a deep emerald in color, with a black vest, and matching black gloves. He will take it upon himself to judge each person's attire (which he will unabashedly hate), then restyle them into something more along his tastes (even if it takes him a while, he will find something you don't ruin). There are, of course, many different combinations to pick from, all hearkening to a very loud style of dress that seems as much neon as it is punk or steam. One might even name it steampunk with a splash of neon. Neon Steampunk? Something like that. An interesting combination to say the least, Theobold insists as much. This is, of course, not simply limited to newcomers, though they will likely be exposed to this boutique more quickly than the others. Any who come near the general area of the hospital (thus the boutique) will find themselves being encouraged by the other bots to come inside, and they will likewise be judged and restyled to Theobold's tastes—which are as bright as they are bold. He really doesn't take no for an answer, though he can't truly stop anyone from leaving any more than a pushy grandmother fussing over her grandchild's clothes might. He has obviously discovered his passion, why not indulge him? ⏵ trending or treading ⏴ After enjoying the privilege of being restyled by Theobold, he will also insist that you take the outfit for a spin around the city! See what people say, take note of how many looks you catch, how many eyes are on you. He wants to hear about it as well, clearly to validate his own artistry, and who can blame him? Does not every artist strive to hear a little bit of praise for their hard work? Do they not yearn for recognition from the public? Theobold may be a bot, but he is also an artist honing his craft! His boutique is not above critique, though he hopes the critique isn't too harsh... Should one indulge him, telling about what others thought, he will gladly gift the outfit to the wearer. A humble act of his endless generosity! Or if they fancy another outfit of their own taste from his boutique, then that will suffice as well. Even if it breaks his heart that you don't like the outfit. No, no. It's fine, really. It's perfectly okay. Everyone has their tastes, and yours just happens to stab him in his mechanical heart. He'll get over it. In time. Probably. ⏵ leaving tracks ⏴ Companion bots have taken to building train tracks, as well as what appears to be a train station, in the South Eastern island of Etraya. The area is, for the most part, blocked off from Etrayans. After all, it is a construction zone, and the companion bots are ever vigilant with safety. At least they try to be. However, if people wish to lend their aid in the construction, well, they won't necessarily stop them. However they will assure them that they are not in need of assistance, and might intermittently remind those especially helpful Etrayans of that fact. Those who wish to simply watch the construction may do so, but nothing especially interesting is going on beyond the mystery of what this these tracks and the station might be for. Besides a train, of course. After all, since when has there been any mention of a train? Asking the companion bots about it will yield little results. They won't be able to give any further details besides the obvious: when this is done, it will be for a train. It seems even they might not know the full extent of what this entails, or maybe they cannot say. Regardless the reason of their lack of explanation, it seems patience might be the key to the answer. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ Some may notice that in the area Gorgug's friend had gone exploring outside of the environmental bubble, there is a message written on a massive piece of fabric, which is tied to two large rebar poles. The message is in an alien language, but the earpiece will automatically translate it: DID YOU THINK YOU WERE THE ONLY ONES? On the bottom of the fabric are four vertical lines. Every Friday, a vertical line becomes crossed through with a horizontal one. For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

[cantilevers]

This is the same argument we've been having for years, Silco. It's the same gripe, over and over. So let me break it down for you, again:

[So much for ignoring the other man. It was hard when Silco was battering against him, clamoring for his attention like a starved child and flinging anything at the wall to needle, prod and poke at him. He was no better he had the good sense to recognize, how they provoked each other, how the cannery had split open all the old wounds inflicted on one another over the years.

He slowly turned again, looking at Silco from the relatively safe distance between them. He made no motion to close it again.]

Yes, I made a deal with the Sheriff of the Enforcers. No, no one outside of Benzo and a select few knew about it. Yes, the whispers were abound with the idea of. We stay out of Piltover's business and she keeps the Enforcers strictly to investigating crimes that can't be overlooked. [He closed his eyes. Grace hadn't... deserved the fate she suffered.] It bought us time because I'm sure you could guess the alternative after the Day of Ash. It was a good deal, the best we were going to get with a pile of dead Enforcers.

[That wasn't counting their own dead, the lost souls left behind who had to pick up the pieces. People had wanted to fight, and Vander had made it clear that they had been given concessions. Things in certain industries had improved, the mines where he knew the conditions were the worst. It was progress that stalled out, but his goal, his talks, his nudges were all to protect their people. It's all he ever wanted: a better life.

He reached up, pushing his fingers through his hair, and his eyes dropped away again as he glanced at the banner. The translation sounded in his ear. That was enough of that; there would be no solving this and no discussion about it with someone who might actually be more insightful than he was. No, it was just Silco hissing and spitting nearby, and Vander had had enough to trying to divide his attention for his own sanity.

Silco was the larger threat. So, that's where he finally decided to settle his attention for the moment. He knew it was best to walk away, to be called a coward because to stay was to be called a violent brute. No win situation.

Yet, Vander shrugged his shoulders at Silco's little tirade about the Lanes. He stared at the other man, studying the deep lines on the left side of his face, the glaring orange iris that was all accusation regardless of where it was pointed. He set his hands on his hips and kicked a stone half hidden in the grass.]

You're right. We didn't do enough. The undercity united for a single fraction of a moment in our history once, and when the losses piled up, they went back to the abuses that you and I and everyone else we championed couldn't solve. The slums grew, kids starved in the streets, people died at work or coming home from it. I still can smell in incense to chase away the smell of death and rot.

[He set his jaw as he stared at Silco.]

The Lanes and the undercity under your rule I can't comment about. I wasn't there, but I expect people just wanted to live, to have a better life. Just as we promised. Clean air, a family, hope for the future. Did you provide that to them, Silco? Did you provide every day workers, labours, children, and the slums that? Tell me you did all of that.

[In his mind's eye, he could still see the Zaun he and Silco dreamed about. The smog of industry gone, the levels of the undercity illuminated and thriving with actual greenery. Businesses opening, gangs still around but offering community protection, education, life skills, not just recruitment for a strength of numbers. People wanting to be in the streets, celebrating, being a part of an ongoing solution and not the problems. People living, not just surviving.]

You don't sound surprised. I suppose I'm not either. The dream only seemed to work when we laboured at it together.

[He said the last sentence automatically, like it was a thought he'd been having yet had previously had no intention of voicing.]

[zauneyete]

It was better.

[ He hissed, automatically. ] We had breathable air.

[ Thanks to the councilor, but Silco had been forced to concede that it was something. He'd allowed them in, allowed the scrubbers to start working. He knew how to control them, of course, nobody could put something into the undercity without his ok. ]

We had industry that didn't kill us. We had a thriving culture, just gestating. In only a scant few years, I pushed us closer than you did with all of your time. The enforcers could be controlled. They didn't patrol the streets, and we policed our own.

[ Marcus answered to the council, but he could be manipulated. Sevika led security, and made sure problems didn't arise. Oh, there were always going to be murders. But the truly dangerous things. Those were handled and eliminated immediately. ] You would have hated it.

[ More honesty, maybe, but it's said with a sharp, and biting laugh. Meant to dig in. ] You would have hated knowing it was me who did it, and you had no input whatsoever.

[ Oh, it was still sick. Silco was under no delusion. Zaun had become like a puffed up beast, all veneer, feathers and fur so bright to distract from the starving ribs and sick people down in the sump. There were still kids in the factories and mines, even Chem-Barons put their kids down in there. There would always be those things, but Zaun was free, and wild and untamed. It was a place where the strongest could truly thrive. No limits. No hesitations.

Silco had changed in his dream, from what they'd made together. He'd dreamt of a Zaun that could rival any great nation.

They just needed freedom from Piltover's boot to finally get there. ]

I didn't need you. [ Sharper. Like a surgeons's scalpel. ] The greatest favor you did me was to teach me that.

[cantilevers]

[Vander did honestly try to imagine it. The factory smog was always bad in the evenings and the mornings before it burned off in the Lanes. The lower levels couldn't say the same and there were some areas considered death zones. The ventilation systems were good, but it required Piltover to improve them.

His battle had been food and water, honestly. He'd worked harder to push for better water filtration systems, to remove as much of the toxins from their drinking water, to provide a better nutrition for the population. That came with significant costs, many of which people couldn't afford and he couldn't leverage on his own even with the backing that he had.]

We've always had a thriving culture. Breaking things to build them better and more efficiently. [The art, the architecture, even the plants and their faith was an eclectic part of what it was to be of the undercity. They lived on pride, on being oneness against the world beyond the deep spirally levels digging ever deeper into the earth.] I've heard, yeah. You did more than anyone on the strength of your unwillingness to back down. [It had been confirmed to him even by Piltover, so he had to acknowledge it. He wasn't ashamed or bitter enough to refuse that.] You brought us to the precipice of independence.

[Vander considered for a long quiet moment. It seemed to him that Silco had forgotten that his ego wasn't nearly as large as most. His entire person had dedicated itself to his kids and improving lives. If that was done, well, it benefitted all.] No, I don't think I would have hated it. But how you and your Chem-Barons treated our most vulnerable might have garnered disagreement.

[The corner of his lips curled in a superior smile at Silco's claims.] You clearly don't know me well enough if you think I'd hated it based on you being involved. I think you're also wrong that I had no input. I am the shadow hanging over you, over your endeavors because you were so determined to prove me wrong. So, in a way, I was with you ever step of the way...

[His smile only grew until it actually reached his eyes, and he had a soft laugh as he shook his head. Oh Silco. The man never changed, only sank further into the sharp familiarities he knew so well.]

Keep telling yourself that, Slugger. Maybe someday you'll even delusion yourself into believing it.

[zauneyete]

[ The longer he goes on, the angrier he gets.

Silco lives on spite. On proving everyone else wrong. They all doubted them, first their gang, then the revolution, the nation of Zaun, and then Vander had gone and done what he did — he'd proved him wrong again. He was always making those that looked down on them, whether they were Pilties, Lanes residents, anyone else, that he was doing more for them than anyone had bothered to do before. Oh, the most vulnerable, he would agree, had little hope, but it was better to fight for the cause than it was to die for nothing.

Worthy sacrifices towards a worthy cause. People who had to die, or become subsumed by shimmer, or any number of reasons. He didn't mind that Vander disagreed, in fact, he knew he would. He didn't even have to say it.

It didn't matter. Revolution was messy. It consumed. It chewed people up and spit out the remains. It was a truth he knew, that Vander had never truly understood. That there was no easy, gentle way to what they wanted. They could not "be nice" and find their way into independence. The Topsiders thought with their pocketbooks and their "principles" that did not include them. It never had, it never would They were not of their concern. They were not really their constituents, merely little more than the hired help.

Worth pennies on the coin, and all.

Vander doesn't accept that. Silco doesn't care.

Vander wants to say he's the Ghost at his feet, and Silco doesn't care. It's untrue, of course but to let himself be taken by the anger again (And again, and again, and again) he can't. He refuses. Jinx asked him not to escalate it.

He's only using words. But Vander aims to cut back.

Silco's lips peel into a sharp smile, and he blinked, just for good measure. ]

Oh no, Vander. I don't think about you at all.

[ It's a lie, but he doesn't care. He wants to hurt. ]

You have greatly oversold your importance to me. I have more important things to think about, after all. Since I somehow managed to balance raising a child and achieving our independence, after all.

[ He turned. He intends to leave. Leave him with that. Let it lie. ]

I suppose that means you simply weren't up to snuff after all, doesn't it?

[cantilevers]

[Vander knew what Silco was about, how the smaller man had crafted an identity struggling out from under the implications that he was some shameful creature. He'd never treated Silco that way - except that one time looking for a fight - and he knew that the identity, the goal, the sharp edges were all built around that one needling insecurity.

Now Silco wielded it with spite, like a weapon to turn on anyone and everyone. It came under the guise of revolution, under each biting phrase, and even in the other man's body language. He could read it plain as daylight on Silco, and it did seem like no matter how much time passed that there were some aspects of a person that would never change.

To that end, Silco would go to any length. It didn't matter the people that the other man would have to step on, how much of the revolution Silco carried on those narrow shoulders, how the means would always justify the end. Everyone else saw a snide mean little man; Vander saw a deep scarred, flawed and driven person who laboured to escape from a titled laid upon him since birth, since the notion could be perceived.

And even now, turned words to weapons, Vander read the truth under the malice. He knew the lie as it passed beyond Silco's misaligned teeth.]

I bet you lay awake at night with all your plans, papers and dreams and a shadow of what we once had drives you forward each day. No, not a day goes by that you don't think about me. [He didn't make a motion to follow this time.] I know that because the reverse was true.

[And if anyone knew Vander better than himself, it was Silco. The verse was true.]

You mean the child that accidentally killed you? Sometimes dying for the future is worth not being the one to achieve it yourself. I've made my peace with Vi eclipsing me; have you made peace with Jinx eclipsing you?

[zauneyete]

[ Vander had always been good at finishing fights. Most of the time it was with his fists, yes, but he could always take a beating — physical or psychological — and then finish it with a swing.

Silco sees this punch coming from behind. He doesn't block it (can't) and though it's with words, it strikes just as well as any solid punch. It hits him in the back, his shoulders rise, and his fists clench at his sides. The thrum of anger makes him want to turn around. Vander was good at being earnest, and honest. Once, he'd thought that was endearing, someone who was such an oaf, so open with their emotions no matter where they took him. Until, of course, they were turned on him.

Ah, that was the lesson he learned, wasn't it? That there was nobody in this world that he could trust. It's something he'd always known, really. He was a Zaunite, and that was the way of things. Maybe he'd wanted to believe differently enough that he'd convinced himself that they could all be different, their little gang of misfits, driven to look for something better. Like with all things they had, it was ripped away by someone bigger, and stronger.

It was why Silco was all jagged edges and sharp corners, why he looked over his shoulder at him with that pitch black eye, a molten prick of hate that burns outward in the center. He refuses to give, he refuses to simply take the verbal punch. Vander has no power over him. He lost that ability on the same day he disfigured him, the same day he escaped with just his life. It makes him too bold, maybe, but Silco doesn't fear death. He's experienced it twice. Once, he was reborn from the water into this new man, and once he was reborn into this new world. Death could not keep him, could it? It didn't want him, and thus, he would remind everyone as to why that was. ]

You're right, Vander. Some days, I wake up and have to convince myself that I can still breathe. So I suppose there is still a shadow there. Not that you need proof that you've left your mark — [ He reached up, and tapped the skin under his blackened eye. ] — now do you?

Enjoy your mystery. I have more important things to attend to, than entertaining you.

[ He most pointedly, will not talk about his feelings about being killed by Jinx. ]