I'm not saying that it's aliens - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 2

[libraryassistants]

Who: Readers and Actors
What: Beta Story final log
When: November 28 - December 11
Where: Woodhurst (UK) and the SS Radiance (in space!), 2019
Content warnings: Please tag warnings in comment headers!

In Woodhurst:

There is quite a bit of confusion in the village as the weeks pass by- by now it is clear that some people are very much not themselves, and there are multiple theories as to why. Aliens, obviously- the really weird bit is that it’s not just certain edgy teens purporting this theory, but since there’s been some (alleged) activity previously, maybe they’ve come back! Some tourists (and perhaps some locals) have made signs of the ‘Take me with you!’ variety, mostly loitering in the town square or in the park, whenever they get chased out of one or the other.

Suffice it to say, those people aren’t being taken seriously by those in charge- though even they have to admit that something strange is going on. Prevailing theories amongst officials are ‘gas leakage’ and ‘water contamination,’ neither of which are suitable explanations but no one seems to want to think too hard on it. As a result, the friends and families of those acting out of sorts are in a strange position. Do they try to seek medical help? Wait and hope it sorts itself out? Or do they join the crowds bidding welcome to their potential alien guests, demanding their real loved ones return?

Visitors of all stripes might find themselves a bit more scrutinized, as a result. Didn’t a bunch of weird people show up just as people seemed to start changing? Readers and aliens alike had best be on their most normal behavior, or it’s possible they’ll get cornered by someone asking what’s happening, or… a fanatic who wants to be taken up into their spaceship. Some of whom have some weird questions about probes. Good luck figuring out what that’s about.

On the IMW Group Supply Ship: Radiance

Things are not all well further up in the atmosphere, either. The staff have had to deal with much more pushback than they were expecting, including some people who seemed to not enough understand the concept of mental health (which was not in the briefing- shouldn’t they have at least heard of it before?). A few cases also seem to be quite severe, involving a level of intervention that they weren’t really prepared for- but of course, they’re here, so they’re going to do the very best they can to get all the humans the help they need! Hopefully legally.

Most alarmingly, however, it seems there have been some kidnapping attempts! …Kidnapping attempts that didn’t involve them! Someone, or multiple someones, have managed to get the patients off the ship without first filling out their discharge paperwork, and that simply will not do. As a result, security is ramped up on the ship… sort of. There’s very little in the way of a security crew, after all, and it’s not like they can call in reinforcements. So mostly this means that there are some very tired counselors who have been put on hallway shifts, and everyone has been assigned a little name badge that they MUST wear at ALL TIMES.

(There are actual people guarding the shuttles now, but again… there’s only so much security. The real question is, do you really want to beat up the aliens who are just trying to help?)

To their credit, the various Group members are trying to listen to the concerns of the patients who are here… less than willingly, and are beginning to filter some cases back to the planet by request. But they are going to do it properly, which means the proper forms. A wrap up visit with their counselor, a form agreeing to be finished with treatment, a politely worded request to maybe not tell people about the aliens (it’s not an NDA, because the Group has never needed those, it’s really just a form asking if they’re going to talk about it so management can figure out how badly this is going to go). Oh, and would you mind filling out this survey about your experience?

Of course, not everyone is in a hurry to leave- or at least needs something to do while waiting for bits of paperwork to approve. All the regular classes and sessions are still going, and they even retrofitted one of the spas to have water instead of… whatever it was before. Now certified safe for humans!


[Information on what's available on the ship is in the first log; info post is here.]

Comments

Hikaru Aozora > Michi - Mitch? Akira! Tsukuda (Actor)

[extrasaltypotato]

1 - Therapy - Let's Get Down To Business
Despite her... them?self, Michiko - Mitch - has started, if not looking forward to the various forms of therapy, then at least feeling a lot better afterwards.

Being listened to about how much they resent being forced to do all the girly crap her parents and a large swath of the other adults around her insist upon and having authority figures agree that it was always a pile of kuso, grande sized, is a new and altogether relieving sensation.

So addition to talking to Min'a, they - he? - started doing yoga and tai-chi to get back in touch with his body, availing himself of the massage services, doing art. He's not bad at aping the styles of his favorite manga artists, does some Quintessence card token mockups, starts on an Ad Terra commbadge.

He's surprised to realize that when the others agitate to escape that he's not ready to go.

2 - Woodhurst - Did You Give Me Daughters...
Lumat'aru is not having a great time pretending to Michiko down at Woodhurst. In her defense, the briefing was wrong in ways that couldn't have come out until the subject had therapy - holy mother of stars, what kind of backwards planet assigns gender at birth? - but it really stings to know that Michiko's parents almost certainly weren't fooled. She can feel their active fear and resentment of her presence through her antennae all the time, no matter how hard she tries to play up typical female behavior in the local culture.

Then, at some point, it changes... at least a little. Her parents relax, and while they aren't exactly thrilled to have her, they no longer seem to actively hate her.

She finds out why later: "Patient has contacted his parents with our permission. He will be discharged soon. Maintain role for a fortnight. If you are comfortable doing so, ease the others into his new role." So she relaxes into it, a little, lays off the makeup and nail polish a bit, experiments with Michiko's old leather jacket (so cool).

It doesn't help. The bullies are back in force, and this time, they taunt her with:

Hey, if it isn't the space alien who replaced Mitsuko!

She knows that this is a taunt and not indication of belief, but her blood still runs cold, and she freezes in place and can't stop the tears from coming. And this time, bursting into tears only encourages them.

Lookit her bawling like a baby! They shunt up your nerve, too? Haw!

Someone who hasn't been slurped up, save her?

3 - On The IMWSS Radiance, Post Escape Attempt - But You Can Bet, Before We're Through...
Siobhan did manage to rescue him, bless his crazy renaissance girl, even if that didn't involve physically removing him from the ship. "Hikaru" was almost, but not quite, perfect for him... but he just figured out what he could to with that thought.

He had a few last things to do before discharge, and one was making a few special requests of the doctors and the recordkeepers on the ship.

And then, to his friends and the therapists, he screws his courage up, and says the magic words.

Please call me Akira. Akira Tsukuda.

4 - Woodhurst, Post-Discharge - I'll Make A Man Out Of You
It's a watch party night when Akira returns home, by way of arranging it with poor Lumat'aru who had taken his place.

He takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.

Her mother answers, and stand there in stunned disbelief for a second. Her protests are cut off with a little judiciously used Japanese:

"Hontōni wata... ore da yo, okāsan. Tadaima."

"O... okaeri," she returns, then - to his shock, his mother actually hugs him in public.

He doesn't fight it.

After going through much the same with Dad, he makes his way up to his room - still with the flowery "Michiko's Room" emblem - then opens the door to everyone gathered there, including the one person not surprised to see him. And Lumat'aru says:

Oh, thank god you're here. How the hell do you put up with those creeps at school?

1-ish?

[hellandbackpack]

It's only been a few days, but the routine of the ship is plain enough. And something about the air of the aliens makes it seem almost mean to mess with them too much. Not to say Charles isn't keen to find his friends and make sure they're okay, to get back to Earth, but he has come to believe that they're fairly genuine in their claims that they'll be sending the humans back soon.

That doesn't make therapy any less harrowing. After the rather distressing first session, he's noticed that they don't dig too pointedly at his homelife or family any more, even if they often tend to come at it a bit sideways. He's not sure what their goal is with that, but it leaves him feeling a bit sensitive all the same when he manages to scoot free of the one-on-one therapy sessions. At least during the group sessions and activities they seem to not push at that at all. It means he's a bit more willing to go with the flow for the moment. Even if he feels a bit tired in the moment.

That feeling flees him almost immediately when he spots a familiar face from across the common space he wandered into, whatever he'd been thinking of doing fleeing his mind immediately as he lets out a relieved little shout and all but rockets across the room to fling arms around his friend.

"Oh my god, there you are!" His voice pitches, cracks a bit like it always does when he's trying to play it cool, like he's not about to have himself a little meltdown from some sort of emotion- relief in this case, clear enough in the tight grip he has on that hug, face smacking against their shoulder with a breathless little laugh. "You're okay? Like... really okay? I've been... feels like I've been goin' mad, first that weird copycat alien, then here, not knowin' where you were-"

Re: 1-ish?

[shelloflight]

"Charles!"

Michiko is carrying herself in a much more confident way, and is for some reason pitching her voice down a bit, but she's not fake or off the way her fetch was. It's her. It's definitely Charles' friend. You're getting hugged back.

"Gods, I'm so sorry they got you - I was in the first batch they shunted up - granola and yogurt for brains, all of them, I swear -"

And then that question at the end.

"This is - this is going to sound strange but. But yes, and for the first time, I think. I haven't been okay for a while before they got me, and - bloody idiots could have asked me to come here instead of what they did, but they helped me find out why."

[hellandbackpack]

She's doing something with her voice, making it lower somehow, and there's something a bit taller in how she's carrying herself, but it's still plainly his friend. And he can't help but laugh, a small watery thing in response to her comment about their 'captor's' intelligence.

"S'fine, I've been goin' mental worryin' about you and Shadow anyways, at least here I can know for sure now that you're okay, yeah?" No that doesn't mean he was effectively alone with a couple doubles for company, don't worry about it, because he's gonna breeze right past the implications of that to focus on her answer to him, brows furrowing as he draws back- still holding onto her arms, but releasing the hug.

"They did?" It hadn't been a surprising thing that Michiko was struggling with things back home, with the clear tension between her and her parents, and everything that came with it. So it wasn't really a shock to Charles that she'd not been okay. But that the aliens had somehow helped? "Well... suppose they're not completely useless then, if they helped you figure things out."

[shelloflight]

"Oh they're absolute idiots about anything not having to do with shrinking heads, and terribly brave besides," Mitch says, the latter euphemism meaning fucking idiotic. "All this trouble because they didn't have the sense to go 'hey guys, if you shut up about us we'll hook you up with free services.' But I won't hold that against Min'a."

Mitch shakes her head, clapping Charles on the back when she does in a curious way.

"I - fuck it, you've trusted me for as long as I've earned it, and this won't change that. I figured out the problem. My parents wanted a girl. They got me instead."

Let that sink in.

[hellandbackpack]

Charles is well aware what she means by terribly brave, because there's been a time or two that she's said as much to him in that fond, exasperated way in place of shaking him until some common sense activated in that golden retriever brain of his. Hearing it leveled at someone else earns a thin little snicker from him, some scrap of normalcy in the midst of a strange situation.

And she can likely see the wheels turning- Charles isn't especially hip to internet culture, but he's also not entirely out of the loop, so there's a moment where his dark brows furrow, mulling over what was said before they lifted, eyes widening as the penny dropped. Because... well, even as roundabout a way as it was admitted? It made so much sense.

"Blimey," Breathed quietly as he processed it, but didn't draw back farther, giving his friend's arms a gentle squeeze. "Well, they lucked out, you're brills anyways. So... how'd you want me to call you then?"

yes, 1.

[shelloflight]

Michiko - Mitch - he allows himself to relax. This was the expected result; Charles was mental, but in the best way. Still, he's relieved.

One down, hundreds to go.

"Well that's the question, innit?" he says, with a little laugh. "Mitch isn't a bad stopgap, but - I love my parents, I know they did what they did out of love and not understanding something it took a trip to bloody space and a goddamned bloody patient mindreader for me to work out. Mitch is a good name but it's not a Japanese name, now is it? And not having one of those seems a betrayal."

He sighs, thumb under his chin. Thinking. It's a pose Charles knows well: Mitch is directly emulating the tell of Commander Graves - second in command on the Ad Terra's OLSV Endurance, and a towering pillar of manliness - thinking hard about the Dilemma Of The Week.

"...And right now I'm drawing a blank," he admits. "But you've always called me Mitch, and you always can."

[hellandbackpack]

Charles nods his understanding, smiling wryly. "Your parents didn't much care for the copy. They'll be real happy to have you back, whatever name you're goin by I'm thinkin'."

That's the impression that he got from the conversations after Mitch had been snatched. They might not entirely get it at first, but he thought they would love him regardless.

And he's absolutely clocked the pose. He doesn't say anything to admit it though, but his smile widens, becomes a bit more relaxed at the familiar sort of thing.

"Mitch for now then," He confirmed with a nod. "An' you can tell me when you think of what you wanna stick with past that."

[shelloflight]

"Mitch forever, for you," he confirms. "Sprinkle in a bit of what I figure out later."

He takes a deep breath.

"...did they hurt you, when they got you?" he asks, quite seriously. "Have they done anything to you but... talk to you about..."

He sighs.

"Your problems?" she says, not specifying what - or who - those might be.

1 probably?

[starandhope]

Despite much of this mission going completely pear-shaped, Min'a has had a few wins. She has only ever wanted to be useful, helpful to others. And, difficult as this experience has been and continues to be, she does feel as though she's been a help, if only to one or two of her patients.

This is one of them.

"Good afternoon," she offers a smile. "How have you been? Did you enjoy the yoga?"

Yep!

[shelloflight]

He's been going by Mitch as an experiment, and trying to pitch his voice down. It wasn't much of an adjustment. His speech patterns were always, as he puts it, 'blokish.'

"Better than the tai chi. I think I can nix karate from my bucket list," he says, chuckling, shaking his head. "Got a kink out of my shoulder and it's better meditation than bloody sitting seiza. And ah."

He takes a deep breath.

"Turns out I do like a little bit of sewing in the right context, like making costumes."

[starandhope]

"I find both yoga and sewing to be very relaxing," Min'a points out easily. "They both give me something to focus on, complex enough to keep my attention but simple enough to not cause me any undue anxiety."

She is careful not to characterize anything in gendered terms.

"What sort of costumes would you be making? Helping your friend?"

more 3ish after all

[shelloflight]

"Ad Terra uniforms, maybe an outfit for Saburo and Junko. I wouldn't be wearing the latter but I've enough friends who would," he clarified. "Patching clothes. Maybe a decal for my jacket."

He leans in, hands together, trying to figure out how to say this.

"During the escape attempt, I... someone important to me found me." He won't rat out brilliant, mad, beautiful Siobhan. "They saw me and accepted me almost instantly, and they... made a quite brilliant suggestion. I won't use it, but it sparked an idea."

[starandhope]

Min'a is, quite frankly, so happy for Mitch. This is exactly the kind of thing she's always wanted to do - really help someone, give them whatever nudge they need to make their lives better.

"What sort of idea?" she asks, curious.

[shelloflight]

"How much do you know about Japanese writing, Ms. Ha'arker? I know you've got an autotranslator, but do you know what kanji are?"

Regardless of whether or not she knows, the boy formerly called Michiko, who's been going by Mitch, writes three characters with a mechanical pencil in a practiced hand:

佃光子

"Tsukuda, Michi, -ko, is what my parents named me and how I've been reading these three till now."

[starandhope]

"I'm afraid I don't know much about Earth's systems of writing, no," Min'a admits. Her research had been limited to what she knew would be immediately useful to her for this mission.

Still, she watches intently, ready to learn.

[shelloflight]

"So the thing about kanji," he says, with a close-mouthed, determined smile, "is that because they're whole words instead of sounds or syllables, there are a bloody lot of ways to pronounce them, depending on context. For an example, dunno how it came to me, next to the character for 'female child,' -ko, this reads as Tsukuda Michiko."

She erases that character, leaving just:

佃光

"Take it away, and you could instead read it as Tsukuda Akira."

4

[terraboo]

... Seriously. They need to be escalated at.

[Laina sighs. She feels like she's been... Utterly superfluous to the situation, knowing what she now knows.]

... You okay?

[Perhaps shocked, but...]

[shelloflight]

Better than. Allo Laina, the outfit suits you.

Lumat'aru I presume? [The suddenly quite masculine... Michiko? says to her fetch. Or maybe Laina isn't surprised by any of this, if Sio's been keeping her updated via Sendjewel.]

Tell the entire planet why don't you, [the doppelganger replies with a huff and a fold of her arms.]

[terraboo]

Toooo be fair, yeah, I was already aware of that and didn't say it. I'd like to keep how I know hidden. Girl's gotta keep some mystique right?

[Laina chuckles a bit, trying to seem all dramatic... To limited effect.]

The bullies at school still suck, by the way. Just so you're ready for that ahead of time.

[shelloflight]

Oh, I will be. They're cowards. They think I won't fight back.

Won't that land you in detention?

Depends on how I do it donnit? I didn't say I'd punch or kick them. I said I'd fight back.

And how are you holding up? Your friend Siobhan is mental in the best way - uh, is she here?

[terraboo]

Best way to stop that sorta thing, if you ask me.

Sio's... Uh. Actually, I'd need to check. I think she's around?

[Laina may have gotten caught up in the school mess and everything and got stuck keeping track of people and teenage social lives in the modern age are weird, also anime.]

[shelloflight]

He fancies her.

Shut up.

That wasn't a denial.

...no it wasn't. Shut up.

[terraboo]

I mean, fair, she's cool.

[... Laina still after ALL THIS hasn't realized Mitch is Heeks.]

... What are your plans now that you're back, though?

[shelloflight]

Having a heart to heart with my parents. Keeping up the media club. Wishing some of the folks I met this month farewell.

[He winks at Laina. Your secretly being a time traveller is safe with her.]

I'm going to go back home and have stern words with folks that planned this little excursion.