( semi open )

[dothelokimotion]

Who: Loki Odinson (dothelokimotion) and People Trapped in Arcadia
What: it's a SCHEME
When: Early July, idk time
Where: Inside Arcadia
Content Warnings: N/A

[ if you are trapped in arcadia and musing on a way to take down the authority and bust your way out, then you may notice a green magical butterfly in your vision. it's beckoning you. somehow. don't ask how magic works. you end up following it through arcadia until you set into a room.

a room unlike those in arcadia. it's all golden with red drapes and torchlights. even the view from the windows seems starry, unlike anything on earth. and there's loki, dressed in a black suit, tapping his foot impatiently. ]

Finally. Let's get to business, shall we?

( MEET AND GREET | PLOTTING )

Comments

[atypical_echo]

[That's a very chipper wave, sir. Are you sure you're okay? This is sorta jail and all of that. Well, there are other words that Mark could use too, but it always feels like people look like him like he's crazy when he uses the terms, and he hasn't done enough research to know if that's even in the history of this world and... He rambles even in his thoughts.

AS for the question, he nods toward Loki and smiles.]

Loki. He's pretty great. Tried to help me escape when this whole thing sorta came down on my head. Since you're new you wouldn't know that Fantastic announced this place and said it was for our good and 'suggested' we move here. But some people weren't 'suggested' to. For some people like me it was the same day as the announcement that these suppressor guards just show up to arrest us. Luckily I work at Loki's theater, I'm the social media manager, or I was. Loki helped me hide while I came up with an escape plan, which was putting his neck out on the line for me.

[vaudevision]

[ vision has no idea waving cheerfully would be in any way weird right now. he follows mark’s nod towards loki with open interest, folding his fingers neatly back over his knee. ]

But both of you ended up here anyway, despite your efforts to avoid it?

[ for the sake of clarification. ]

[atypical_echo]

Yeah. I'm not the best plan guy, and I'm not... Well, I can't do much beyond take a good picture if I'm not around people I can mimic. So I didn't make it that far after I was out. Especially since I didn't want to put people at risk to shelter me. Don't know how the boss got here, but he's a big public and political figure, so that probably figures into it.

[vaudevision]

I see. Well, it’s good that you weren’t hurt, at least. And ... thank you for filling me in.

[ yeah he read about loki. on the internet. he does not have any real conclusions to draw from all that so far so he just nods, satisfied with the information. ]

Have you been in this universe long, if you don’t mind me asking? And— [ vaguely gestures at, well. all of it, really. ] —this treatment—is it unusual? I was made aware Starfallen don’t enjoy exceptional societal privilege, but this all seems to have happened rather quickly.

[atypical_echo]

Uh, just over a year I guess. And yeah, it hadn't been this bad until Fantastic took over. The former guild leader, he tried to respect us even if we are outsiders who don't always stick around. But it's a lot worse in the last few months. He's building his brand on hurting us.

[vaudevision]

[ oh good. well, not good, that actually sucks. he’s just internally googling this in the meantime. ]

I ... see.

[ landing in a new dimension, fine. immediately getting thrust into political conflict, somewhat less fine. ]

Is it working?

cw: discusses kidnapping, imprisonment, implied experimentation, and japanese internment camps

[atypical_echo]

[Is it working? Mark laughs bitterly. Of course it's working. He's here against his will isn't he?]

I have these same powers back home. People with abilities, Atypicals, we're far rarer and far more of a secret there. Secret enough that I actually didn't realize what I was, given what I do. So far as I know, I'm one of a kind there. I lived a relatively happy life, away from it all. And when I finished my bachelors I decided I was going to go on a world tour with my friends. I was all packed up. Headed out to the train station. And some guy in a polo shirt and jeans and staggering all over the place looking like some frat boy stumbled into me. I remember a sharp pain in my neck from getting sedated. I woke up chained to a bed in an underground bunker. For testing. They held me for five years and I can guarantee you I didn't consent to what they did there.

[And he looks like he's not even done, even though he's running his hands up and down his arms, his leg bouncing, his anxiety building.]

I couldn't believe it, you know? Confining a citizen against their will for no reason beyond 'to protect the public' when they hadn't done anything. Except I did believe it too. Because in my world, in World War II, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. And there was this... this overwhelming fear fostered in the nation about people of my heritage, or even who just looked like me. They gathered people like us up, herded us to California, and the 'kept us there for our own good'. People who had never been to Japan, people who only looked Japanese, children. That was something that was in history books, and there it was, happening to them. When I was in high school I believed it could never happen again. But I remembered the words. Never again. It's what families like mine told kids like me. Never again.

And then it happened to me after college. Because of something I didn't even know about myself. And now...

[He gestures around them.]

I'm a member of the Alliance. I go by Echo. My job is literally just support. Pair me up with another meta I can copy, who has a necessary skill but needs back up or maybe additional range or capacity or something. I've never hurt anyone here. I live in Central and I get regularly mugged because I look and am that harmless normally. And Fantastic sent his 'guards' to my place of work, sir. They sent his guards into my place of work where only Loki knows what I am, to arrest me and force me here for literally never having done anything, not even speaking out against Fantastic even though I should have. Because never again. I got out because a coworker was really smart, put two and two together, and warned me. The same day everyone else got ads quietly 'inviting' them here, I was on the run. I got away for a bit, but they caught me. They forced me here. Some people are allowed to leave, because they're told this is only 'advised'. I don't. They targeted me.

And society lets them. Lets Fantastic do this now like my world let my government kidnap me. Like my world let my government imprison people who look like me.

[He shakes his head, which is the slowest and most deliberate motion about him in the moment given he's shaking like a nicotine junky in withdrawal.]

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely working.