The full seasonal event can be read here! Below are the main seasonal items for quick reference:
1. A thread reacting to the season's weather in some ways.
2. A thread in the part of the city your character doesn't live in!
3. A thread relating to your vocation.
Of The Season
Quote
"Tell Dr. Nate that Gale sent you, and he still owes me for the mushrooms. Except that it takes you a while to reach the clinic, and by the time you do your fever is spiking, and so instead of the requisite message you instead tell the poor soul who greets you that 'A gale'a m'shrooms sent me cus'a my hands.'" - Zephyr in Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
"The engagement? I don't usually keep track of all those. Plates kids get married and pop out kids more than the sun goes up and down. You not happy about it?" Adam asked casually, leaning to look at the notebook and copy it down as he spoke, the romantic tribulations of Sunjata's life the least interesting kind of information he could have for his work (for gossip, though? It was valuable).
His handwriting was, fitting to the name Sunjata had given him, like a drunk spider had run across the page with feet covered in ink. Still, presumably Adam could read it, and before long he had a full page of scrawled notes to check up on later. "...I think I trust you, but if this is all you fucking with me, Arbiter jr..." He mumbled as he took the note and folded it into his pocket, looking up to meet Sunjata's eyes. "I can't do shit to you. But I'd be really fucking mad about it."
And respect it a little, honestly, but he wasn't going to admit that.
"..What else do you need? Might be some things I can help you with." Somehow, sitting on a shitty rooftop hang out spot above neon alley, they were starting a working relationship.
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
“Saints, no.” Sunjata responds immediately, head turning away the second that Adam was done writing the notes down, closing the notebook almost too quickly that the snap of it closing makes him focus more, keeps him from jolting a little with the surprise. He tucks the book away again, glancing back over at Adam. “She’s a good friend and all, but, we tried the dating thing before and it didn’t work out. She’s not quite my type and I’m pretty sure I’m not hers.” A shoulder rises and falls in a small shrug, unsure why he feels like he can be so honest with Adam yet here he is blurting shit out.
But he meets Adam’s eyes with the threat, a dark brow rising as it’s made and the only thing he can do is actually laugh when Adam says the worst he could do is be mad at him. “I’ll rest well at night knowing that you won’t be mad at me. How’s that?” The smile pointed Adam’s direction is crooked and amused.
As for what else he needs that Adam could help him with, he reaches up to tug the hat off for the moment and rake a hand through his hair before he rubs at his temple and places the hat back on. “I suppose… What kind of changes you’d want to see down here? In your eyes what’s most important?” He imagines the flooding situation, yet he doesn’t know how to fix that immediately. And regardless, it’s mostly about wrecking what topside has, rallying the people down here. “And maybe what you all would like to see that might boost morale?”
"Hm. So what is your type?" Adam asked, still distracted, not really that bothered about the answer but speaking by pure habit. Had he known he had actually met Sunjata's fiancee, he would have been stunned she could not be someone's type, but for the moment he imagine a stuck up Plates heiress, all upturned nose and mean looks.
It had been intended to be a joke, though if he actually thought about it (which he did), Adam could make Sunjata's life considerably worse with the right amount of information and manipulation. "Great." He nodded, patting the note in his pocket. Hopefully the intel contained within would be useful and this could be the start of something bigger than the both of them.
In the street below music began to play and Adam leaned back a little, tapping out the tune on his leg as he thought over Sunjata's question. It seemed obvious, staring up at the bottom of the Plates, to just laugh and point up - there's what needs to change. Swallowing that answer, he tried to come up with a more involved one before he looked back over. "Look, there's a million little things I could say, but the real fucking core of it? The Plates demands a lot and gives us absolutely jack shit. Rules and rules and all that and no support. Only reason anyone obeys is force. People don't like a leader that convinces you with a boot."
He was a little surprised by the eloquence at which this came out of his mouth, but he supposed it was what he'd been thinking and saying in many ways for years. "As for moral? Depends on what kinda moral you mean. Like just making people feel better? Or making them feel like fighting?"
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
Now that’s a good question – one that stills Sunjata a bit along the rooftop as he thinks. Unfortunately, being an Aristocrats kid did have its barriers. Boundaries of what he can and can’t get away with, and a lot of it had been internally trying to decide what it was he liked and what the rest of them tried to say he liked. And Savera? Well, they’d been each other’s type long ago, before the realizations hit and they broke up, realizing it would be better for the both of them if they didn’t stick with it.
And then Shaju’s order happened.
“I, uh, don’t really know yet.” Comes the honest answer, though his steel gaze doesn’t return to Adam immediately. Hopefully if Adam was that invested in it then he’d understand that Sunjata doesn’t get much of a chance to go and whore himself out to see what it was he liked and wanted – more of a do as your told kind of coupling.
Music begins to play – a melody foreign to him but he leans toward it all the same, mimicking Adam a small amount as he works his jaw. “Understood.” Sunjata rumbles, his Plate accent thicker as he tries to figure out ways around it when his second question is answered. “Well, I suppose fighting if we want anything to change. Making them feel better feels like a band-aid at this point.” And what good did a band-aid do in the face of the destruction cracking through their very foundations?
"Ah, just get yourself down to one of the special clubs and you'll work it out." Adam nodded with confidence, sure that an evening at one of the Drenches seedier locations would sort out Sunjata's romantic woes.
With talk of revolution around that was hardly his main focus though; he stopped tapping out the tune on his leg and instead swayed to it a little, nodding his head every so often as he thought. Years ago, he'd danced to this song with his mother in their tiny kitchen, back before he knew what the Plates even were, when his father just had a 'job that meant he was out a lot'. The slight heaviness it filled him with, despite it's happy melody, informed the tone he spoke to Sunjata with next.
"I like your spirit, Arbiter jr, but..." He cringed and turned to face his rooftop companion now, no more swaying to the music. "No matter what you do, there's gonna be people who will want you on a chopping block when the fighting's done." He represented too much; there would be those who wanted any trace of Shaju gone forever.
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
Sunata can’t help but to snort at that, a shrug of his shoulder. “Sure, I’ll get started on that.” He pauses, huffing out a soft sigh as the conversation shifts. Spider’s tapping slows down and be starts to sway, and his attention flickers toward the street below where the music plays, Adam’s somber voice keeps the hackles raised on the back of his neck.
He hums a soft sigh, a nod. “I know.” It’s resigned but he folds his arms across his chest, hands squeezing his biceps over the borrowed clothes. “I just hope that maybe I can do enough that it prolongs it out. Or enough I can just… Go somewhere else.” Not like he’d particularly be welcome anywhere else, but he hasn’t thought about it too much from the dream he’s working on. “Maybe fake my death.” He snorts. It would be easier to do that if he went somewhere else where his face wasn’t plastered in paparazzi photos all over the Plates.
It was good to see that Sunjata accepted the realities here; were Adam in his position he would absolutely be entertaining fantasies of becoming a folk hero, somehow pushing off the shackles of a noble reputation and being the 'good one'. "Yeah...Or I mean, who knows, maybe people'll come around. I guess it depends how much they see you do." And if you make it, he wanted to add, but instead he looked down away from Sunjata and fiddled with the edge of a blanket.
A few songs went by down in the street, Adam getting his way through another bag of snacks in the time (it was amazing to many who knew him that he kept such a distinctly slim figure, when he seemed to throw food in his mouth which such wild abandon) and laughing at the odd altercation or stumble down below. While this was something he did often on an evening anyway, he did hope that this view of the Drench, still above but intimate, might mean something to Sunjata. Close up but not through the enforcer's visor, you could see people differently; smiling parents watching their children run around, shopkeepers cutting deals for those in need, groups of friends laughing and drinking.
He wondered what it would be like to have a similar view of a Plates street. Adam imagined it cold and quiet, people walking in right angles like robots made of marble and barely uttering one word to each other.
"Right." He said eventually, slapping his hands down on his thighs. "Should we get you back to daddy before he gets suspicious?"
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
The Spider doesn’t have to add it in order for Sunjata to understand, evident with the soft sigh that slips from his throat with a small nod, arms tucked in tight around his leg like it’s some comfort thing now that he doesn’t have the body armor to fully protect him. He’s exposed, more so with the secrets he’s given Adam, and he swallows hard as the weight of it all settles on him.
It keeps him silent while Adam finishes his snacks, quietly wondering alongside the rest of those that have seen him eat, wondering where it all goes in that spidery, tall, lanky body. “Mm, yeah. Unfortunately.” He heaves a sigh, unfolds himself to stand and stretch out, prolonging the view of the Drench and the peacefulness it offers — the reason he wants to actually fight for this, regardless of what it means for him.
And not just because it’s a perfect fuck you to the Arbiter. “Lead the way, Spider.” He hums, gesturing out with an arm for the taller man to guide him.
"Alright, let's-" Adam started to get up, until he swore he heard Sunjata call him spider. Pausing, half-up with his knees bent, he turned his head to stare. "...The fuck did you just call me?"
Regardless of Sunjata's answer (none of which would adequately explain it) he would set off, leaping and easily running along the rooftops with the same gay abandon as before, feet somehow finding perfect balance along thin tops of signs and balconies. Sunjata had proven he was capable of following at a decent pace, so Adam wasn't going to wait this time, following the same route back until they came to the top of the launderette they'd 'acquired' Sunjata's new clothes from.
Adam hopped down the windowsills and went to the door, put his hand in the mailbox where the enforcer uniform had been stuffed. Suddenly, horror came over his face and with the other hand over his mouth, he spoke up to Sunjata as he descended: "Oh my god, it's gone."
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
As Adam pauses and questions what Sunjata’s called him, the enforcer simply just offers a small smile, a shrug of his shoulder — not exactly inclined to reiterate what he said. He feels like the point gets across and besides, Adam’s never told him his name. He had to come up with something to call the man.
But before he knows it, Spider is off, not giving him time to catch up as he bolts across the tops of signs and buildings, Sunjata struggling to remain just as graceful as the Drencher on the path back down.
He makes it far later than Adam does, finally dropping down into the world below with a soft thud, panting into the borrowed clothes, struggling as he tries to catch his breath, tugging the hat off of his head to wipe away the stifling sweat, only to hear Adam’s words at the little box they’d left his uniform in.
Horror washes over his face, dropping everything as he bolts to the box, bumping into the taller man as he searches for it. “You fucking said it would be safe!” His voice pitches with his panic, before he can actually see that the uniform is still within the box, anxiety and relief both leaking from him as his shoulders sag. “What the fuck, man?” He asks in a still breathless, panicked voice, shooting a glare at Spider.
