TMA Daily Life — Life of the Ordinary Citizen

This article is an entry in the Animalia citizens' encyclopedia, the Animalopedia. Dates follow TMA-Timeline. Related: TMA-Religion / TMA-Education / TMA-Economy-AMT

Citizen life in Animalia refers to the way of living peculiar to a multi-species city that never sleeps for 24 hours. Its defining feature is the structure of the "three-shift city," in which three living time-bands — diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular — take turns within the same city blocks, and it is known by the saying "Animalia has no closing time; only the species minding the shop changes" 〔citation needed〕.

1. Scenes from a Single Day

Morning (the diurnal hours)

• At dawn the Metro's first trains roll out, and night-shift nocturnal species heading home brush past diurnal species heading to work at the ticket gates. The station crush of this hour is called "the Ebb."
• The morning market sets up at Neon Crossroads. Its signature is the assorted congee of the porridge stall "the Dawn Congee Stall" — green-leaf congee for herbivores, dashi-broth congee for carnivores, and a side of insect skewers (mushigushi) for the insectivorous species. The sight of predator and prey lined up on the same stall's bench is one you'll see nowhere but Animalia (→ TMA-Lore-Deep §2.2).
• Mornings after rain carry a faint whiff of ozone. Some whisper it's "proof that even the weather is managed," but most citizens pay it no mind.

Midday

• Savanna Square hosts the trading and gatherings of the large species. At Tree Market, it is the hour when the arboreal species' dealmaking is at its liveliest.
• Midday is the nocturnal species' "dead of night." Daytime noise in nocturnal residential wards is governed by a penalty-backed ordinance (the Quiet Ordinance, AE 67), and delivery workers are required to wear sound-dampening footwear for their paw pads.
• The lunch peak comes twice: at noon (the diurnal), and just before sunset (the freshly-woken nocturnal species' "breakfast").

Night (the nocturnal hours)

• The neon flickers on and the city's population turns over. Nocturnal Nexus, the public floor of the Oasis Casino, and the stall districts all come into full swing.
• Nights of the full moon are the Night Safari. It opens with the chorus of the Evening Reading (→ TMA-Religion), and the nocturnal species' festival runs until morning.
• New-moon nights, by contrast, are quiet. It is the day of abstinence known as "the Silence of Oracle," and many households dim their lights.
• In the dead of night, the Hua-Long Hui's jiangshi labor dispatch (from AE 95) begins loading and unloading in the warehouse district. When you hear the ring of bells, standing aside to clear the road is the citizens' etiquette (→ Hualong-Family).

2. Housing — Three Rent Brackets

Housing conditions mirror the city's class structure exactly. The going rates are as follows (Burrow Bank Housing Finance Division, surveyed AE 120; figures are monthly AMT. → TMA-Economy-AMT).

Since the average citizen's monthly income for unskilled labor is said to be 2,000–3,000 AMT 〔citation needed〕, Elysium rent comes close to half an ordinary person's annual earnings. Sociologists point out that the middle class's dream is not "from the row house to Elysium" but "renting the second floor of the row house on top of one's own" (Bulletin of the Animalia Folklore Society, AE 119 edition).

• Species-adapted housing: semi-basement units for burrowing species, top-floor units with perches for birds, units with direct canal access for aquatic species (the banks of the Veil Waterway are also an upscale residential district for aquatic species).
• The Polar Ward and the Jungle Ward: since the Biome Wards were completed (AE 73), cold-climate and tropical species live in their respective wards, but working in the Central District — the "biome-crossing commute" — has become common. The per-car temperature settings on the Metro exist for exactly this reason.

3. Food Culture

• Stall culture: the heart of Animalia's cuisine. Predator and prey line up at the same stall, it is said, because stalls were the site of an old truce custom predating the Five-Family Accord — "those who are eating do not attack" 〔disputed〕.
• Species-segregated restaurants: upscale establishments are organized by diet as a rule. There is the carnivores' luxury club "Predators' Paradise," herbivore prix-fixe houses, insectivore omakase specialists, and so on. Serving a "courtesy plate" (odorless preparation) to a companion of a different diet is the mark of a first-rate house.
• Convenience stores: the 24-hour chain "Nocturne Mart" operates across the whole city. Because the three-shift city has no "dead of night," the shelves are swapped every eight hours to suit the dominant customer base. That the liquor sold in the city's convenience stores is wholesaled by the company of the executive Jumbo (Jumbo Liquors & Co.) is a bit of trivia known to those who know (→ TMA-Lore).
• School meals (→ TMA-Education): the dual-menu system of the herbivore "Green Line" and the carnivore "Red Line" originated in the municipal schools and has since spread to corporate cafeterias.
• Taboo: "Never praise another's staple food to their face" (it evokes predation) is the first commandment of dining etiquette. Spelling out "the day's menu" on an invitation is not courtesy but a safety check.

4. Entertainment

5. The Five Families and the Citizen's Sense of Distance

To the citizen, the five great Families are "scary people" and, at the very same time, "an upgraded version of the neighborhood association."

• Turf = neighborhood association: festival security, allotting stall spaces, mediating marital spats, even searching for lost children — the neighborhood's troubles are first brought to "the office." Because it is faster and surer than the city police (→ TMA-Police).
• Lamp money (protection money): the colloquial term for the tribute shops pay each month. It carries the implication that "the lamps on our street are protected by that House," and the going rate is a few percent of sales. Because a House that collects too roughly loses its turf's goodwill, "not taking too much" has become the unspoken etiquette ever since the Five-Family Accord. That several turfs temporarily waived lamp money during the Burrow Panic (AE 89) is a story citizens still tell (TMA Times, AE 90 January issue, "Recession and Honor").
• Sense of belonging: phrases like "our neighborhood is the Rossos' neighborhood" or "we're of the Hua-Long Hui's line" are used not as declarations of who rules but as an introduction of where one is from. Asking about a prospective partner's turf during marriage talks is perfectly ordinary.
• The line: that said, citizens never step into "what happens inside the office." "Borrow the light, don't look into the fire" is the downtown rule for getting by.

6. What Citizens Know, and What They Don't

• On Oracle: to the citizen, Oracle is "a well-made civic AI." Climate tuning, the Metro's punctuality, crime prediction — it is the name of a convenient public service, and hardly any citizen minds being unable to enter Oracle Tower. "Oracle is watching" is a stock phrase for disciplining children.
• On the Five Families: every citizen knows the Five Families are "not mere merchants," and every citizen pretends not to. There is commentary holding that this collective discretion is the true substance of the seventy-year peace of the Age of the Five Families 〔by whom?〕.
• Recent anomalies: since the AE 110s, however, the talk of the streets has grown restless.
• Complaints of memory discrepancy — "I remember the same event differently from my family" (surging since AE 119. → TMA-Timeline).
• Testimony from the contractors who go in that the eastern Glitch Zone (first observed AE 108) is "spreading."
• Sightings of the mirror-double — "I passed a resident with my own face."
• A rise in "voluntary admissions" to the Lunatic Sanatorium.
• The municipal broadcast keeps calling these "baseless rumors," but in the late-night chatter at Nocturne Mart they are the topic of choice. The neutrality of this section is disputed.