EFFECT STATUS: TRUTH

Blurb:

After a year of being physically estranged, Loki decides to finally confront her partner, Aiko, for skipping her birthday, but when she steps into the apartment, she discovers reason to believe her partner has been kidnapped. Determined to find out what happened to Aiko, she reassembles half the group of former heroes who have been retired for six years. As they set off on their journey to find their lost friend, there’s the question of whether or not these unconverings are doing good for anyone, and if they are, is there really anything they can do about it now?

Act 1 summary-

Can we find Aiko? (Inciting incident when Aiko skips Loki’s birthday and Loki finds out her girlfriend has been impersonated) Loki and the crew investigate what’s going on with Aiko. They chase and interrogate Soren (the kid pretending to work at the apartment building), who confirms she’s in the other world. On their way, they find a lost kid named Kieran who expresses he’s been abandoned. Chieko lets him join the group, and with the help of Chrys and Carter’s big brains the travel begins. The group decides to plan where they can look while resting at a bar until Loki sees one of the waiters looks familiar…. Wait- is that Aiko?!

Act 2 summary-

Can we bring her back in one piece? It is Aiko! But she keeps insisting that her name is Jaylo— she doesn't seem to remember anything, and her boss/caretaker, Alex, thinks everyone is harassing her. When Loki manages to prove that “Jaylo” knew her by singing a familiar song she wrote, the gang attempts to rejog her memories. Alex explains to Chrys and Connor how he found her in horrible shape and took her in. While Loki does everything to regain her trust, small conflicts keep growing between everyone in the group. [Other versions of Connor, Kieran causes Moyo and Chieko’s miscommunication, Chrys’s uncertainties etc] That’s when Moyo finds out that Kieran knows more than what he’s letting on, and calls him out on it. Kieran confesses that he was involved in Aiko’s abduction, and the antagonists (who are linked to Antoinette’s parents) wanted to figure out how a human was able to command magic… using unethical methods for the research (Aiko’s memories are gone due to physical and emotional trauma, specifically due to lighting shocks). Loki and Moyo are obviously pissed and this leads to infighting between them and Chieko. Stressed from all the arguing and noise, painful memories are triggered for Jaylo. She loses all of her progress towards remembering. Unable to recognize anyone anymore, she collapses into a coma.

Act 3 summary-

What are we gonna do now? Loki and Aiko’s argument before their separation is finally shown to the audience, which reveals why Loki blames mostly herself for everything that’s happened to Aiko. With Persephone’s help, she goes into Aiko’s (turbulent) dreamscape to see if that can bring her back. Meanwhile, Moyo and others decide to take on the villains who put Aiko into her current state. Everything has all been building up to these two significant interactions: Perse and Dami, and Loki and Aiko in the dreamscape.

Occupations and arcs ideas:

SPOILERS AHEAD. Most of these arcs revolve around the impact of change.

(-) = barely to no prescience

LOKI- journalist, struggling musician, tragic hero figure (+)

• Loki lives paycheck to paycheck; she only takes gigs near Aiko’s apartment building.

• Loki feels compelled to be “emotionally strong” to atone for her past mistake. Loki has very big emotions she struggles to get a hold of due to her traumatic upbringing. During her last interaction with Aiko, she leaves the building after realizing she has lashed out instead of apologizing. She takes a walk to calm down because she does not want Aiko (or anyone) to see her cry. A big focus for her character is her growing frustration for the current dilemma on how to get her lover back. If she’s around other people and close to snapping, she still removes herself to hide how intense those emotions truly are.

• Her anger and determination is what leads to the main cast getting answers, but it’s also what led to her losing Aiko in the first place. Believing there’s still a chance to right her wrongs, she decides to go into Aiko’s mind to bring her back while the others decide to go after the antagonists. In the scene with (true) Aiko, it should be visually conveyed that this time Loki allows herself to cry in front of Aiko. And in response, Aiko hugs her, meaning she didn’t have to walk away in the first place.

MOYO- video game streamer

• Moyo wants to maintain the present. Moyo is content with their current situation, and they want things to stay the way they are. Chieko, on the other hand, has been busy lately- she managed to get a job while at school, and is insistent on being the one who pays the bills. Moyo believes they have a manageable income and is worried that more financial and living situation changes may lead to the couple growing apart like Aiko and Loki did.

• As soon as Kieran is introduced to the crew, everything goes to shit. Kiki leads Moyo and Chieko to genuinely mistrust each other (one idea is that he makes Chieko think Moyo’s using drugs again, another is making Moyo think Chi is mad at them). When MOYO discovers Kiki trying to sabotage Loki, they react extremely angry because the life they were content with (friends with Aiko, living with Chieko home, less stress) is gone. Knowing the chances of Aiko returning are slim, they focus on finding whoever is responsible— and making them pay. They know Aiko is likely gone but they still want some justice to be served.

CHIEKO- cosmetology student and hair stylist

• Chieko worries about how sustainable the future is. She hopes that she and Moyo are able to move out of the current apartment because she fears “just getting by” won’t be comfortable enough in the long run. While uncertain about whether living in the city is permanent or not, and wondering every now and then about kids, she does not want to tell her partner that she doesn’t think their job can cover more than the rent. Given that she has dyed most of the main cast’s hair, she thinks it makes sense to go to cosmetology school. She currently has a job working at a hair salon.

• Kieran is the problem. But Chieko wants to see the best in him because he is young enough to remind her of Hina, her late sister. Kiki feels like a younger sibling Chieko lost and wasn’t able to save, so she feels a strong obligation to protect him and prioritize him more than her other relations. When Moyo discovers that he played a part in Aiko’s disappearance, Chieko feels obligated to defend him. While wanting to be there for her friends, she does not want to expel him from the group. In the end, however, she accepts that most of the group will not accept him. She refuses to completely abandon him (an action she knows could isolate her at that moment), but she ultimately ends up siding with Moyo to “avenge” Aiko. This has to happen because Kieran ultimately is how they find the BC base.

AIKO- supposedly an astrophysics major (?)

• Timeline

• CONTEXT: 6 years ago Aiko was determined to prove she could be something more than what people thought of her. However, once she started living with Loki, the need to be great changed to her being happy with where she was. Loki was helping her save up for her dream school, and secretly paid some of the tuition cost to surprise Aiko. Loki was unaware that Aiko withdrew from the school. The miscommunication leads to a fight breaking out between them because all of the savings for rent were poured into the school’s tuition instead. Stressed, Aiko makes a remark about how Loki “isn’t working a real job” (Aiko had been working two jobs to cover most of the finances), and in response, Loki yells.

• That night: (During the 2 hours Loki was outside) Knowing they’d have to move out soon due to the miscommunication, Aiko starts packing her things to make the process smoother. She goes to write a note, starting with “I grabbed my stuff”, but gets knocked out and abducted before she can finish. When Loki returns, she sees the half empty apartment and the note. Devastated, she moves out on her own. The only reason why Loki doesn’t think they broke up is because (fake) Aiko calls her and acts like everything is fine. The only reason Loki has (fake) Aiko’s apartment address is because she wanted to deliver her letter personally. Soren compromised by having Loki leave it at the door. He didn’t read it. This then led to the chain of Loki bringing food to “Aiko”, and Soren leaving it in the empty room due to feeling guilty and overwhelmed.

PERSE- Private Investigator and Barista

• (Stetch has a better understanding of what her character arc should be)

• sort of ideas:

• Perse has been distant with getting that monEy

• Loki confronts her and asks her to join her for one last adventure to find Aiko

• She helps Loki with that last resort (going into Aiko’s mind)

• She’s distraught to learn that her brother, Dami, is one of the villains

CHRYS- midlife crisis over whether he should completely assimilate into Earth’s customs by looking for a partner or studying engineering; He is choosing to cope at the bar instead.

• INERTIA ARC. Chrys has barely moved on from the last partner he had

• He sees that people his age already have jobs and families

• Reveres Carter Smith and his research

• He is smart enough to do engineering and well versed in the world of science, but because of his uncertainty, is not actively pursuing it as a career

• If I had a nickel for every time a character with cat ears idolized a celebrity with glasses in their favorite field of study I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

• Doesn’t know what to do with his life now that the gang’s all grown up, and he doesn’t want them to know he’s aimlessly lost right now.

• Not definite Ideas?

• During the mission to get Aiko back, he finds a lost belonging to what seems to be his ex’s (it ends up belonging to her kid). This distracts him from being completely focused on the objective

• In an attempt to right his wrongs, he tries to be as friendly as possible to Jaylo (contrast to how he berated Aiko in PHE). This in turn leads to Jaylo feeling the least creeped out by him in Act 2.

• Chrys runs into his ex and the two begin arguing over the lost item and her kid’s safety. Jaylo, remembering Aiko’s childhood of her turbulent parents, smacks sense into both of them

• “You need to focus less on each other and more on the kid you’re both arguing about” - her point basically

• After Jaylo collapses and Loki goes in, Chrys tells Perse he’ll stay behind to keep an eye on Jaylo and Loki.

• This doesn’t have to be definite and he can probably fight with them, but I think Perse needs to be present for the final battle so she can have some tense interactions with Dami.

• It would be interesting if Chrys was the one there for her when she wakes up because it goes from his inaction over not moving on to actively comforting the protagonist

• Full circle: Chrys saw when Antoinette took out Loki’s eye and didn’t do much to directly help her. This scene he is directly trying to help the best he can.

CARTER SMITH- respected scientist and Chrys’s drinking buddy

• (Another one of Stetchy’s awesome characters I love him)

• A divorced businessman, as opposed to to his other worldly counterpart

• Likely has a heated conversation with ‘Snake Connor’

• He’s probably familiar with interdimensional science

• Sees Chrys as intriguing and as a loser

(will eventually add more for JAYLO, ALEX, SOREN, DAMI, CONRE, BEE, AND ZAYNE)

Emira- art major deep in student loans (-)

Amy- creative writer (-)

Konnie- fashion student (-)