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A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information center. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.
TO THE SOUTHWEST
The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.
As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.
Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.
TO THE EAST
The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.
A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.
You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.
The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.
As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.
Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.
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I WANT TO BE SEEN CLEARLY, OR NOT AT ALL.
» DAY AFTER DAY IN THE ARTIST'S STUDIO…
When you step into the lobby of the museum, you find yourself faced with several options. Ahead of you, as well as to the right, are long hallways full of blank canvases, faceless statues, and pieces of art of varying skill levels created by fellow City residents. The hallways seem endless, but the lighting is warm and inviting, encouraging you to walk along their lengths and explore each of the canvases in search of some invisible treasure.
As you walk along the hallways lined by these empty frames, you begin to notice podiums standing at even intervals. They look like docent podiums, the kind where a museum guide might stand and store their guidebooks and informational materials. You decide to open one of the podiums, and are surprised to find that instead of a map of the museum and an explanation of the art, the podium is overflowing with various art supplies. There are watercolors and oil paints, acrylics and pastels, brushes and turpentine and palettes on which you can mix your shades.
Maybe you leave them there, or maybe you decide to create some art for yourself. These canvases just look so empty, after all, and deeply in need of a little color to brighten up the place. It doesn't seem all that likely that anyone will come around to punish you, either—and with that, you grab a handful of art supplies and make your way down to claim a canvas for your very own.
» …I DRAW A SECOND BODY, THEN A THIRD, AND SO ON.
Down the hallway to your left, however, is an exhibition room full of masterfully painted canvases, sculptures with faces, and even more abstract pieces of contemporary art. The walls are painted a warm, dark brown and the overhead lights draw attention to each of the pieces of artwork, leading your eyes around the room and encouraging you to gaze at each piece in turn. There are benches in the center of the room as well, cushioned ones that allow museumgoers to have a seat and spend a while contemplating the art they're observing.
As you continue around the room, examining each piece one by one, you begin to realize that some of these works of art look… familiar. Not familiar like you know who painted them, but familiar like you recognize the contents, or at least you recognize something about the setting or the circumstances depicted in the painting or sculpture. In fact, upon closer inspection, the common theme uniting all of the pieces of art becomes even clearer: these are all works of art that have to do with you.
There's a painting of the house where you spent your childhood, maybe, or a portrait of the woman who raised you. A sculpture depicting the person you've regarded as your rival for most of your life. There's the building where you went to school, or the jail where you were falsely imprisoned, or the ship that you spent months aboard before you ran aground. Each piece of art depicts some important moment in your life, whether positive or otherwise. Some are rendered in brilliant detail, while others are in an impressionist style, but it's clear that everything is somehow connected to you, in one way or another.
You look closely at each of the cards affixed to the walls next to the works of art. While each of the pieces has a title, the artist and year fields are blank—there's no way for you to know who created these pieces, but it must have been someone who knew you very, very well.
Before you know it, another museumgoer has entered the room. Maybe this is a little bit awkward now, letting someone else look so intently at all the most intimate moments of your life. Or maybe you find it exciting to finally be able to explain all of the happenings that made you who you are today. Either way, you find yourself compelled to give the newcomer a tour of the exhibit of you, and to explain to them the subject of each painting so that they might better understand how it ties in to the greater theme.
The art museum has been open since District 4 opened in November, but until now, the exhibit in the left wing of the museum has been closed to the public. It's open now, and full of beautiful works of art—paintings in different styles, sculptures, even more experimental and conceptual pieces—that all have to do with the theme of you. That's right, your character is the subject of this exhibition, and every piece of artwork in it features something that makes them who they are. They could depict landscapes of places that are significant to them, portraits of people who have influenced them throughout their lives, photographs of the worst things that have ever happened to them, or conceptual art depicting their mental state.
Upon entering the left wing, characters will feel the urge to stay there in the exhibition room and act as docent for their own exhibit. They will feel oddly compelled to explain at least two of the works of art in depth to any museum patrons who come through the exhibit, and only once they've given those two detailed explanations will they be able to leave the exhibit hall. The works of art can depict anything that was significant to the character, not only negative things but positive as well, and can be any style of art that the player wants to explore. Please feel free to be as creative as you want!
For characters who don't want to enter the exhibit hall at all, there is also the option to create art of their own. In the main and right wings, there are plenty of blank canvases all over the museum walls, and interspersed throughout the hallways are podiums containing various art supplies: watercolors, oil and acrylic paints, pastels, etc. Characters can make use of these mediums (or bring their own from home) to create works of art on the available blank canvases. These works of art will not be reset, unless a player chooses not to app, and starting the following day will have a museum card on the wall next to it indicating the title, artist, and medium of the artwork.
The title for this month's monthly prompt comes from "Bluest Nude," a poem by Ama Codjoe.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There are even some places that other residents have created! There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations. We highly recommend checking out the Character-Run Locations as well - they might be great places for new characters to get started!
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citylogs2023-12-01 09:00 pm
aoba seragaki | dramatical murder
▶︎「 ✦ 01: Steppin' out ✦ 」•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:10
▶︎「 ✦ 02: Feel Like I've Lost a Friend ✦ 」•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:10
▶︎「 ✦ 03: Get Stuck In ✦ 」•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:10
▶︎「 ✦ 04: Baby, You're a Work of Art ✦ 」•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:10
▶︎「 ✦ 05: Bonus Track ✦ 」•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:10
01
Well, he's got one of those going for him. He's heading down the street with a bag of "real food" and unfortunately wearing the worst sweatshirt he owns, and fiddling with his phone, so for a second when he's approached he just stares blankly like he doesn't get what's going on. Uh--]
—Oh, uh, the diner? Yeah, I know it. [then a little wryly, like it's soooo funny,] But I'm not new.
[ha ha oh god it's been forever]
C'mon, I'll show you where the diner is. You're like new new, huh? Just woke up?
no subject
Uh- yeah, I guess so? I thought I’d just fallen asleep at work again, but when I woke up I was here. The info sheets at the station tell me that’s normal?
[ He makes this expression and gesture combination that seems to say ’What part of that is normal?’ but regardless, he does feel a little better to be talking to someone. Even if that someone is the world's sluttiest dad, if his shirt is anything to go by. Aoba catches himself reading it quite a few more times than is necessary before focusing resolutely on the stranger’s face instead. ]
But thanks. I’m Aoba. Do, uh— do new people arrive here often, then?
no subject
He sticks his phone in his pocket, so he can gesture an ehhhh kind of motion with his now free hand. Ehhh.]
Once a month, but how many people show up is another story entirely. As for normal...
[....he gestures again, wiggling his fingers more this time.]
Enough, I guess? I'd probably say "standard," but I'm not a writing-info-sheets kind of guy.
[And this third gesture is to follow him, this way up the street, towards the elusive Diner. ........and,] Oh, uh, I'm Junpei. I've been here the whole time, so... I can say you get used to it?
no subject
Aoba looks a little comforted in the ‘it’s not just me’ kind of way, even though finding out that a random swathe of people turning up in an unmarked and untitled city is considered “standard” by this point isn’t exactly reassuring. But he doesn’t want to waste too much time being concerned with questions that he’s sure Junpei can’t or won’t answer. What with not being an info-sheet guy, and all. ]
‘Kay, well. I guess I’ve got used to worse. [ He puffs out a breath, then sticks his hands in the pockets of his ridiculous jacket before following obediently alongside. ] So what kind of guy are you, if not one that writes help sheets for newbies?
[ Other than a guy with a potentially very honest fashion sense. ]
no subject
I'm a retired time traveler guy.
[But anyway.]
Like, here, though? I dunno, an old timer? I don't have anything to do with the diner, but I... help organize club meetings, sometimes, I guess.
no subject
A retired-
[ Oop, well, Aoba guesses there’s no time to ask about that since they’re just. Steam-rolling right past that little titbit of information. Aoba tries to make a mental note to ask him about that later, but let’s be real - he’s probably going to forget. ]
Club meetings? [ Aoba’s expression brightens at that, and he even lets out a little giggle of laughter. ] I haven’t heard of club meetings since I was in school. What kind of clubs do you help organise? Chess? Anime society?
no subject
But okay, okay.]
Uh, art club, once or twice. And the other one doesn't really have a name, it's just a bunch of us who're trying to figure out what's going on here meeting to trade information and stuff. Theory Club, maybe. Info Society.
[Conspiracy Crew.]
no subject
[ And even then what he does isn’t really a skill, more the application of YouTube videos to fix a problem, but still. He does it better than the average Joe can. ]
Info Society sounds fun, though. It seems like there’s plenty of mysteries going on around here to keep your little Scooby Gang busy, right?
[ The main mystery being figuring out what the mystery even is, he’s sure, since this place doesn’t seem too interested in leaving clues as much as it is just. Being generally and frustratingly cryptic. From what he’s seen, at least. ]
… So there is something going on here, then? I’m not, like, accidentally on the mainland where things are a little odd and my foreign phone doesn’t work, right?
[ He puffs out a breath, trying to allow that information to settle in him in a way that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. ]
2
With a stroll through the creepy neighborhood. Well, it's not THAT creepy, maybe just gloomy from winter weather. Wrapped in a blue long coat with a fluffy scarf and the usual lute on his back, he's been distracted by checking out windows of shops that, as per usual, have no staff manning it.
And then someone ran into him at almost full speed? Had he not been in fights before he'd fall face flat on the pavement right then as he didn't pay any attention to people around him.]
Ooof-! I'm so- sorry! [Give him a moment to reorient himself and regain balance.] No, no, it's fine, I wasn't looking myself.
[A spiked collar? Dorian taps his chin and shakes his head,] No, I'm sorry. I don't think I have. [...] Do you need help looking for it? Is it very energetic dog that likes to run off?
no subject
He's seen some weird things in Midorijima — guys using chopsticks for earrings, girls wearing uncomfortable materials that made embarrassing noises when they walked, even an old dude near the subway dressed up like a different anime character every day in the hopes of promoting his themed restaurant (and that's without mentioning the large sectioned off area of the city that popped up almost in a day and required an invitation to enter) — but he has never seen someone who's skin is blue. For a second he thinks it might be a hologram, and considers trying to wave his hand through his arm or torso, before his better judgement catches up with him and reminds him that accidentally punching a flesh and blood man because you think he's a hologram is much more embarrassing than walking into him, so he refrains.
Maybe he's on an alien planet or something? Or maybe there's a cosplay convention nearby? ]
Uh- [ He says stupidly, only just realising that he's been staring in confusion for some time, longer than can be simply brushed off. But he's gonna try. ] Oh, well. No, not really. He usually stays in my bag, and he shouldn't even be on right now, I switched him off since his power cells don't last as long as they used to, but... I guess he must have booted up and got out of my bag somehow?
[ He says all this like it's a very normal thing to say, which it almost definitely is not, but apparently in Aoba's world dogs have power cells and can be turned off and sleep in their owner's bags??? No big deal. ]
He's a dark blue Spitz, I think. Pretty small, probably only about this big. [ He holds up his hands to indicate a size of a very handbag sized dog. ] So... He could be anywhere.
no subject
The smile fizzles out a little when he gets an explanation, pure confusion now written over his face.] You keep a dog in a bag and you turn him on and off? [What kind of dog is that!? He probably shouldn't be as surprised as he is, considering he saw dancing people in boxes the other day and other 'media' that is not available on Exandria.]
W-Well! If he's not going to attack me upon seeing me, some dogs are very defensive you know- I can help you look! It can be difficult to look for something small in a big city like this.
Besides, it can be a bit confusing since a lot of buildings don't have full names. [He shifts lute on his back and straightens his clothes, ready to go-] I just give them nicknames so I can orient myself.
no subject
Ah- sorry! It’s still new to me, being in this place, so I forget what’s normal to me isn’t gonna be.. normal to you, right?
[ Yes, Aoba, the idea of a dog with power cells is a pretty out there idea, all things considered. ]
Ren wouldn’t attack you, he’s an All-Mate, which means he’s… an extension of my coil, basically? Uh, my contact device. [ He holds up his hand to gesture to the watch at his wrist. ] Which, isn’t working for some reason. He’s my GPS and my heart monitor and my—
[ He’s looking at Dorian and seeing… not a lot of technology. In fact, Aoba’s getting the vibe of that one time he’d been asked to deliver a part across town and had stumbled on a Ren Faire in Midorijima, and the weird looks he’d gotten when he’d trailed his sorry ass through their little woodland scene looking.. the way he does. ]
I… Get the feeling if I try to explain, it won’t make much sense. [ Smart thinking, Mr Genius. ] Basically, he won’t attack you. He’s not an attack dog. He's my friend. His name is Ren, and if you see him, he’ll probably be asking for me too. A beat. My name is Aoba. Just in case you run into him.
[ Then, a thought comes back to him, and he raises his eyebrows in curiosity. ]
You nickname the buildings?