WEEK 02

[modmachine]

With Halloween past, the weekend of November 5-6 brings the beginnings of holiday trappings, as businesses begin to put up lights and other decorations for Monday. Residential areas, too, begin to pick up on the trend; throughout the whole month there will be a slow but steady increase in front lawn decorations.

Interestingly, though some are close parallels to the Christmas decorations that those from Earth will be familiar with, many aren't quite right. Locals, if asked, talk about something called the Day of Lights as much as they do Christmas or any other holiday; it's easy to find out that the amber-yellow and blue lights common in shops are for this holiday, and that it takes place on the last night of autumn, before the solstice. Snowflakes and candles are the most common motifs.

Changelings seem especially into the Day of Lights, and it is a near-assurance that they will be picking up blue candles for it as the month goes on.

Weather forecast: In a word: dreary. Small showers through Monday and Tuesday grow into full rain throughout Wednesday, continuing on Thursday and as a light misting on Friday. The weekend looks clear of rain, but is still chilly and cloudy. There is still no frost, though it's expected by the end of the month; gardeners are moving potted plants inside and putting cover over the more fragile ones for winter.

Moon phase: The moon reaches a first quarter on Monday the seventh, and continues to grow throughout the week.

Employment Opportunity: Those who are of adult age in the city can get work collecting holiday donations for charity, or, for those more inclined to physical labor, a park in the residential district is putting up lights for a holiday attraction. Additionally, plenty of shops are hiring for the upcoming retail season.

Free lunch?: Though there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to Thanksgiving in Hex, food banks are brimming with holiday spirit right now, and in addition to their usual offerings, many are handing out warm lunches to those in need, usually soup or hot sandwiches, sometimes pizza. While those at any given food bank will side-eye someone who tries to come in more than once, it's easily possible to make a circuit of them and get quite a bit of food, especially if you're familiar with the bus system.

Photo finish: Hajime gets a mild of small publicity for his candid photos of celebrations throughout the city, and on Friday will get a call about a potential contract for photos of decorations throughout December. He also gets sent an email about a campus-sponsored holiday fashion show at the end of the month - something Ryoji will hear about mostly via various rumours among the students.

Fueling the Art: At a coffee shop on the fringes of the campus, an Art Student can be found most every morning, sipping a latte and working on sketches. The Coffeeshop Manager, a man in his late thirties with a pair of small sunglasses perched on his cheeks in spite of the grey weather, occasionally offers her tips. Those with a keen eye will notice that walls made of gears are a common motif in the art that hangs around the shop.

The Ides of Fall: Out on the Island The Summer Queen is called before her Autumn peer and taken to task for her unauthorized gathering. She leaves his court fuming quietly to herself, and later in the week Makoto will receive a message - "Watch the falling leaves, but don't go chasing them." Several others of the Summer Court get the same message.

Sweet Loot: On the morning of the tenth, Kitty will find a locket and a note in with her stashed clothes. The locket is full of orange glitter that seems to stick to the inside, and the outside is worked with leaves. The note simply says TREAT in letters that are all distinctly different. When Kitty uses a finger to apply the glitter to something, it leaves glowing orange marks that only she can see, unless someone else sees her apply them or she intentionally shows them to someone.

Richter and Corwin, meanwhile, will each find a piece of candy hanging from their doorknobs the same morning, tied on with a ribbon that trails glitter on any surface it touches. The candy is wrapped in clear plastic, and has a strange flavor neither will be able to place.

Right on Schedule: The trains in Hex are going nowhere fast, but they do seem to have changed routes, frequently passing alongside an area of the wall that they used to avoid. New Arrivals, as well as Hajime and anyone else who can see Infrastructure, will note strangely runed plates of metal under this section of track - plates which seem to be directly attached to the Wall via cables. Every time a train passes over them, the plates spark with bright green, though nothing about the train itself seems to change.

Through the Grapevine: Though Network Zero is usually considered a Hunter organization, plenty of supernaturals also make use of it to keep their eyes out for threats - and their eyes on each other. One or two of Hajime's photos of the changeling gathering is making the rounds, with the odd horned skulls in the bonfire circled in Photoshop, but perhaps more relevantly, there's a couple photos of Malin from a distance that have fallen into the grasp of a current meme ("Is this bat ok?") and three photos of men doing construction work on a building in the Sixth that seems innocuous until it's pointed out that most of the men are completely identical.

Comments

OTA

[crazycatvampire]

I. Glitter-bomb

Though Corwin is delighted to find the candy-- rather like he was with the dead bird the week before-- he doesn't eat it. After all, he doesn't need to eat. He brings it inside and sets it up with his experiments, and when he discovers the ribbon leaves glitter everywhere, he ties it around his wrist and spends the rest of the day getting glitter on absolutely everything, from the garbage truck to the garbage cans to the doors of various shops he stops by, including the coffee shop with the constant Art Student, not to mention all over his clothes and home.

He seems to find this pretty awesome, though, despite people around him being disgusted by the glitter.

II. Supernatural Activity

Corwin does, in fact, know about Network Zero. It's a survival strategy to know where the people who would be the most zealous and the most efficient about disanimating you are going to strike next, after all, so his maker included explaining about that, and how to find the sites in question to garner information, in the few things related to the supernatural community (such as it is) that he imparted before sending Corwin out on his own. Besides, it usually has such very interesting things in it!

So he spends one of his off-days visiting and curiously watching the construction building on Sixths out of curiosity-- are they perhaps created beings like himself?-- and he spends one harrowing night trying to find Malin, with a print-out of the picture of her and a guilty heart, certain that it's his fault she was discovered.

III. Etc

Of course, there's still the routine. Corwin is a creature of habit. He still spends the first half of each weekday hauling trash cans around and taking loads of garbage to the city dump. Then he spends his afternoon finding somewhere to sit and watch people, or even talk with them if they're amenable. It's a different place every day... just to be safe.

One day a week he spends his afternoon working for one of the food banks, volunteering, after delivering half a paycheck's worth of groceries. Even if he doesn't need to eat, he knows humans do, and he would hate for them to go hungry! He'll smile, greet anyone coming in for hot or storable food cheerfully if raspily, and do whatever is asked of him, within reason, to help.

Thankfully the weather makes his ubiquitous long coat and the hoodie underneath it standard attire for just about everyone, though for him it's less because of the cold and wet and more to hide the occasional dark rents in his skin and his gawky, unnatural bearing. The sunglasses he wears day, night, indoors, and outdoors are still weird no matter how you look at it. Oh, well. He's used to being weird.

mostly ota

[runs]

I. OTA ; glitter graffiti

Her first reaction to finding a foreign object with her things was to very thoroughly search everything else for alterations, but when there seemed to be none, she rolled the locket forth and back a few times and then opened it. The glitter she found inside kept her entertained for a while, though it was disappointing to realize that it had to have some kind of magical hiding mechanism, so there was no effect when she had manged to sneakily apply it to other people's things - especially disappointing when she'd managed to apply it to someone's glasses.

So now she's experimenting with if there is any way for it to not stay hidden, mostly by applying it to all kinds of different materials - nothing that belongs to her and nothing that belongs to Tobias, but short of that, about nothing is safe. She's still sneaky about it, because if someone sees it and recognizes it as magical, she doesn't want them to connect her to it.

So far, she hasn't tried on a human, and she isn't really planning on doing that, but as she holds down a dove that she trapped to try and smear some glitter on it's head, she starts to wonder if she should maybe play with a variable not the material. But what else could it be?

"Stay still, you'll be the prettiest dove."


II. OTA ; food banks

Free food. It was a relief to learn of it, and she's been using the food banks a lot, especially the ones offering warm food. Way more than they intend to be used, but when you're a shaman and can make yourself look like whoever you want? That's less of an issue. She's just wearing a different face each time she shows up.

People working in the food banks might wonder why the population of children, little old ladies and other people of 130cm height using food banks seems to have exploded a bit over the last few days. The children are a lot happier to chat than the little old ladies, though. And the little old ladies have very child-like tastes...

[ooc: Willpower roll with difficulty 9 to see through her mask]


III. OTA ; trains

The industrial trains running around Hex are that. Industrial trains. Nobody should ride on them. They're certainly not for being jumped on.

But that is very clearly what today in the early morning hours, the quiet time when the skies slowly turn from black to grey, Kitty is preparing to do. She knows that one of them should pass underneath her in under five minutes, so she climbs over the handrails of the bridge and crouches down on the other side, holding onto the iron bars of the rails while she waits. The trains aren't going very fast at this point, and luckily they all seem to run without electricity cables above, so this seems to be a perfect spot.


IV ; NPC please? ; cafe

It's the drawings that caught her eye when she walked by outside, and they are what brings her in and makes her wander from one to the next on her way to the counter. She orders a cocoa despite her limited funds - coffee is even worse than soycaf, she has found - , not wanting to get kicked out for not being a customer and then wanders back a bit towards the entrance until she reaches the art student. She'll stop there and throw a curious glance over her arm, trying to see what she's drawing.

mostly ota

[movingon]

I fox ; downtown ; ota

There are upsides and downsides to this way of feeding, she has found. The upside is that it is surprisingly safe and easy; people drunk enough for other vampires to pass them up are also drunk enough to either be passed out or at least not remember the next morning, or think of weird hallucinations if they remember her. And after one or two close calls she's become good at keeping to those just far away enough to not be noticed by other Kindred.

There is one obvious downside, namely: There's alcohol in that blood. Lots of it. She's tried to drink in moderation when she used this kind of hunting, before, but somehow she must have failed to estimate just how drunk the guy she fed on was this time. Because ...she has four goddamn legs right now. It should not be that hard to stay upright on them and walk in a straight line. It doesn't help that all her senses seem to be a bit muted, her mind a bit slower than normal.

People might notice a fox very cautiously and unsteadily walking down a street, almost running into a lamppost at one point and then narrowly avoiding being run over by a slow moving car a few minutes later.


II some malformed person wearing a huge hooded military coat ; all over ; ota

She isn't quite panicking, but she is definitely close to it. Ever since Corwin made her aware of that meme, she has been scolding herself - she should have been more careful, should have watched herself and her surroundings better. Should have made sure that she stayed out of everyone's sight.

It's not only that she's a walking Masquerade breach, now. It's also that her aura is still marred for all she knows, and for however much longer, if any Cainite bothered to find her. And... and she doesn't know. She's been on the run and hiding, laying low with as little human thought processes as possible, for too long to change gears easily now, to pull her resources together enough to develop the creativity to deal with this in another way.

She runs.

Not literally, though. Her running away only brings her to head out into the districts which she hasn't been to before for one reason or the other, cautious explorations that draw circles that bring her deeper and deeper into the hills and farmlands, though she quickly concentrates on the hills. Still, they are circles. They bring her back to the urban areas again, because that is where the food is, a tall, awkward figure in an oversized military coat and comically big shoes, wandering through the darker corners of the city and avoiding to take off the coat at all times.


III hills ; owl ; hajime

But sometimes she also takes other shapes, especially when she is out in the hills. She sees more, hears more, is faster. There are almost only upsides to it.

And she cannot feed much out here, anyway. ...But she can still hunt, even if the prey is so small that it isn't quite worth it. Like this one. A mouse. For one of which she is swooping down, a silent predatory shadow descending onto the little animal and sharp talons tearing into it.

OTA

[transient_specter]

I. Fire Burning; beach; mornings

Makoto tends to wake early, with the rising sun. It's not that he really wants to, but he forces himself awake to get away from his dreams. Sometimes they're awful, and sometimes they're far too good. He drags himself out of bed and heads to the beach, jogging along it for a good hour or so. He forces himself to go at a slower pace than he can, partially because he knows going too fast will draw attention.

He's dressed in light pants and shirt as he runs, the rest of his things for the day in a string bag slung over his shoulder. It bounces up and down with him, keeping time as he jogs. At least this way he can escape the thoughts of what lies beyond the Hedge. If he runs fast enough, maybe the ache in his heart won't be able to keep up.

II. Earning Your Keep; residential park; late mornings/early afternoons

Makoto doesn't think much about human jobs - he's only barely gotten used to human society again - but he does have to earn some money, both for the general finances of the Court and their more humanlike needs and for him and Kanon to have enough for themselves. The late mornings and early afternoons find him in the park, helping to put up lights.

The other workers leave him alone for the most part, so it's easy enough to catch him by himself when he's on the job. A better time might be on his lunch break, where he tears into a sandwich and fishes out a bit of meat for a stray dog that hangs around the park. He doesn't say anything to the dog, and the dog is silent, but there's a softer edge to his usual hard expression as he watches the dog eat.

III. Food, Glorious Food; food pantries; evenings

A Changeling has to eat, and sometimes his scant earnings from manual labor don't help. He makes sure Kanon has enough to eat first - despite some of the Spring Court complaining that they can take care of their own just fine, thanks - but that doesn't leave him with much for himself. Slowly he starts making the rounds at the food banks, managing to keep himself from shivering thanks to the coat of fur underneath his Mask. He still has a jacket on just for the sake of appearances, even if it's a bit light for the season. He doesn't want to overheat, after all.

He tends to head there in the evenings, taking his soup or sandwich or whatever and staking a claim on a table near the corner, or somewhere that his back is protected. He hunches over when he eats, and doesn't seem to have a ton in the way of table manners. More than once he nearly chokes from inhaling his food, but anyone who tries to get him to slow down gets a quiet snarl and a curled upper lip.

[dangerouslyinlove]

I

Coffee is essential to being a college student, as it took Ryoji all of a week to figure out. Especially a college student who has the.... extracurriculars he does. So he's a regular in the coffee shop as well, happily chatting with the manager if given half the chance. He's chatty like that, even before coffee, so if he recognizes you prepare to get waved at. "Hi! How are you?"

One day he notices what he thinks is a familiar face, peering over at the art student. Is that Ci...?

II

Sin-Eaters have... interesting communication methods, and the Twilight Network doesn't exist in a bubble. Ryoji has at least become aware that it exists through his many years as a Bound, and he doesn't check up on it. None of these things are related to the underworld, but the photos of Malin and the three men bother him a bit. One because it seems familiar, and other just because it's really, really creepy. He'll be keeping an eye out for both... in part by being around town and trying to hunt down where the construction was happening, to see if he can get a look for himself.

OTA

[chalicejoker]

[A]
Things are going well for Hajime on the freelance photography front. His photographic Halloween observations--a nice cover for a guy just trying to learn about human holidays--have done well. He's pleasantly surprised; he thinks he's doing quite well at creating things for a creature who once knew nothing but mindless destruction. And with the offer of more work? He's got even more of an excuse to get out there and start taking pictures of all the setup for the Day of Lights. If lights are going up, he's taking pictures of them.

[B]
Hajime's also trying to take pictures of things that aren't quite so dependent on the holidays. He ends up in some strange places, whether it's out in the hills getting nature shots...or out by the trains. The strangely runed plates have definitely caught his attention.

So now he's out there taking pictures of trains as they go by, making the plates spark. He can study these later...but for now? He's just innocently taking photos of trains for a train hobbyist group. Nothing to worry about, go about your business...