@theartofmadeline
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Sade Olutola
Cookie Run:Kingdom Official!
todays bird
Fieri Frames
Phantogram Three
No title available
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
RMH
Not today Justin
Noah Kahan
noise dept.
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Product Placement
Kiana Khansmith
The Bright Sessions
sheepfilms
roma★
seen from Germany
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Indonesia
seen from Pakistan
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Portugal
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Netherlands
seen from Canada
seen from Sweden
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Mexico
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Venezuela
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Portugal
@claustrophobia-rp
Half of the city has never seen the sun outside of the Virtual. For the first time in years, there will be a good enough opening for the people of the lower city to gaze at the sky. Tickets are more than a month's salary, but when will there be another chance like this?
Don't miss the sunlight.
http://claustrophobia.jcink.net/
Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it’s about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.
Mordecai Richler (via maxkirin)
-- but what if we didn't have to go?
http://claustrophobia.jcink.net/
Some people can earn a living simply by selling their memories to the highest bidder.
http://claustrophobia.jcink.net
It's never dark on the Lower Levels.
http://claustrophobia.jcink.net
Jeff Day
Vertical One needs this crew. Check out this WANTED AD!
After some problems with the cbox, we're now ready to greet visitors! Come join us at Claustrophobia!
Aaah it all looks so cool *u* I would like to join in but it may take a while because I have no idea how to use the site XD
If you'd like, feel free to register an account and PM me with any questions you have, so I can guide you through the whole thing. Changing platforms is hard, don't worry about it :3
Hey followers! We're now OPEN!
Let's jam!
B&W version
Hey sorry got another question. In this rp will people make their own characters, or are there roles set to be filled?
People make their own characters, but I'll have some suggestions up (mostly of professions or social roles) for inspiration!
Vertical One first appeared as Humanity’s victory over Nature, designed as the ultimate protection against a world that had became inhabitable. Centuries after, as the ultimate symbol of Humanity’s dominance, we’ve conquered death. After millenniums of mysticism and religion, science is now the decisive hope. Old gods have quickly been forgotten, and whatever the meaning of life was before, it is now absolutely changed. Death is not the end, and even though most people don’t have to dread it anymore, Death still consumes people’s lives. It is now another goal, something else for people to buy, and the very thing towards which billions of people work their entire lives.
Death has been conquered, but it’s not cheap.
TRANSHUMANITY
For an incredibly reduced elite of Vertical One, Death doesn’t even mean stepping away from the city. Technological progress available only to those on the top of the top makes it possible to create bionic bodies to where the most important consciousnesses of the city can be uploaded. The true minds behind Vertical One don’t ever change, but their bodies are adjusted, upgraded, and many of them walk among us as the Immortals.
Their bodies, not quite human but similar enough, are distinguishable in the crowd. They might be taller, their proportions might be different, they might even show off elegant robotic parts just so everyone around them knows: The Immortals cannot be killed, they’ve existed for dozens of lifetimes and here they remain, eternal. They are the hands holding Vertical One’s strings, and we are blessed to be in their presence.
THE AFTERLIVES
For everyone else, Death is a new step. All deceased consciousnesses are stored in the huge central computers of Vertical One, and dozens of the major corporations work on designing the software for the various Afterlives. There is one for everyone, from the most bizarre to those who work as a simulation of the mundane Vertical One. The least expensive demand a lifetime of work from the inhabitants of the Lower Levels, but are achievable, and, from then, the quality of the simulation and the add-ons included make Death an incredibly pleasant experience.
Even if avatar customization and interaction with the living are out of a lot of Vertical One’s inhabitants’ reach, the conservation of the immortal soul is reachable by most honest citizens. Unfortunally, crime in Vertical One is a hard reality.
HELL
An alternative to the prisons of the old world, Hell is where criminals and debt-owners can expect to spend eternity. Completely torn away from the reachable parts of the Virtual, Hell is a slow and sadistic simulation designed to keep the inhabitants of Vertical One on their tracks. The stories told about Hell are so brutal, so inhumane, a lot of people have chosen to believe Hell is nothing but a lie told by the Government to keep in the city, and mostly no one dares to speak a word against the initiative.
Misbehaving criminals who have been shown Hell have been told to have gone crazy in despair, and all those who struggle to pay for their Afterlife carry those tales deep in their minds. If one day their money is not enough, if one day their debts grow to overwhelm them, they can be sure to find their way into an eternal sadistic sim.
Vertical One has always been a symbol of Humanity’s victory over nature. A technological achievement as it had never been seen before, and a beacon of all Humanity’s potential. However, in a society which main goal was to remain untouched, unchanging, unscathed, it didn’t take long for technology to stagnate. Every year everything seemed shinier than the year before. Communication devices and personal computers grew better and more wide spread, to the point where every surface of the Upper Levels can be interacted with. Every year, dozens of the biggest corporations in the city release the must have of the season, be it in phones, software, or intelligent pieces of clothing and accessories. And as everyone runs to spend their savings on the latest hype, everyone fails to see nothing life-changing has been invented, and mundane life runs as it has done for centuries.
The big exception is, of course, the neural lace.
Linking people’s brains to the panoply of devices that connected them to the internet was only the first step. Once the neural lace found its way into the back of the head of the richest elites of Vertical One, the possibilities proved to be endless. Both a back up and a storage mechanism for people’s memories, the neural lace quickly ceased to be simply an interface between man and machine, and became capable of transporting one’s consciousness and utilizing it as software.
With detailed information on people available at the click of a mouse, what appeared as an incredibly expensive and elitist product, the neural lace was quickly democratized. The corporations that subsidized the installation of a neural lace on the poor people of the Lower Levels - under a façade of philanthropy as no one had ever seen in Vertical One -, thrived, grew richer, and found their way up the city to the positions of greater power. Not only did the broke found a quick solution on selling their memories to these great corporations for a dime, as they were the ones behind the creation of the Virtual.
The Virtual is many things and, as everything else in Vertical One, what it is depends solely on how much you pay. For those who can, the Virtual looks better than reality itself. It seems more detailed, as if one’s senses work better and are more sensible once inside – a HD of real life. For the others, it varies. Low definition and an overall sensation of surrealism are not rare in the cheaper simulations ran in the Lower Levels, and most people have access to a simple mimesis of reality, only those small red letters on the right bottom of their field of vision – “simulation” – reminding them it’s not more than a game.
Whatever the definition, the Virtual is always better than real life. There are simulations for every taste and inclination and, when in the Virtual, everything one can imagine is possible. It’s not surprising, then, that Virtual Reality quickly grew to be one of the more dangerous addictions of Vertical One. People’s fortunes were spent away on virtual lives. Those without fortunes spent their every penny on another day, another hour. Drugs and prostitution had nothing on the limitless Virtual and, while problems related to those social issues become rarer and rarer, the consequences of something as highly addictive and incredibly lucrative as Virtual Reality is are still somewhat unclear.
Death is a trend, wear it.
Where is this rp taking place and how would I go about joining? I see mention of jcink but I'm not familiar with it at all and I have no idea how to navigate it.
The rp is not open yet, though it should be at some point this week! It will take place on jcink, but don't worry about not being familiar with it. it works like any other forum, and if you're unfamiliar with forum roleplaying, I'll be happy to help you adapt C:
who is running this amazing idea?!
I go by Dulcineia, and you're welcome to drop by and meet me once Claustrophobia is open ;) Anything else you'd like to know?
Opening this weekend!
