Meta

Will you infect my character?

Generally speaking, no. Your characters have plot armor. Some infected characters may attempt to infect your characters if they feel they are threatened, but I'll generally have them make other decisions (even if those decisions are sub-optimal).

Characters

How did so many people from the shitty timeline end up here?

Almost all of them were either part of Síle's personal entourage (Daoirse), or were chasing down Síle (JmtE, Rosemary the Elder, Jargor).

How do I tell the doppelgängers apart?

Jang-mi writes...

I just call 'em babe and see if they respond positively. ...okay, fine, here's the rundown. All of them have wavy brown hair, freckles, light colored eyes, and a white girl Starbucks order. And they all have the T virus, except Colleen, so they can subtly shift their faces and bodies to look like actual fucking twins. Like, they were all trained to do this. But they don't usually do that anymore, so nowadays they've diverged.

• Colleen is probably in Canada or something. No one has seen her in years.
• Daoirse usually doesn't bother to hide her age with shifting, so you can tell from the wrinkles and general distaste for humanity. But if she goes out of her way to look younger? Don't tell Zero I said this, since she's weirdly self-conscious about it, but Zero has put on a lot of weight ever since her pregnancy, while I could snap Daoirse in half over my knee like dry spaghetti. Has the exact same scent as Zero through, so telling them apart the zeitgabber way can be tricky. Dee's clothes often smell kind of chemically, I guess? Between you and me, I think it's crack cocaine, but I guess it could be all the mechanical shit she hordes in her workshop. ...wonder what her blood tastes like.
• Erin is one of the best shifters in Licentia and is one of the few who can beat Zero in a hand-to-hand fight. Darker hair, though, and designer clothes. Her home turf is Las Vegas. Some free advice? She's loyal to Licentia, but don't even think about crossing her.
• Kelly fucking Connors, ugh! She's obsessed with Zero and goes out of her way to imitate her. Slimmer build though, and wears a red bandana 'round that broke skull of hers, so we call her Rambo. Or maniac. Or psycho.
• Zero: love of my life, cuffs on my hands. Unlike Erin, Colleen, and Kelly, who are Irish by blood but were born in America, Zero actually has the lilt. And her blood is... dude, it's something else. No one else I've ever tasted has it.

How much older is everyone from the shitty timeline?

Rosemary the Elder did the math and discovered it to be 22 years, but everyone else just says 20 years as it makes the math easier.

Viruses

How contagious are the viruses?/How do they spread?

Can cachaemites drink their own blood/the blood of other cachaemites?

A cachaemite will happily drink another cachaemite's blood, although this can be dangerous for the blood donor if they have cachaemic anemia. A cachaemite may also self-feed, but this has no benefit besides taking the edge off a burning craving and the mild high associated with drinking blood.

Can zeitgabberim eat themselves/other zeitgabberim?

Zeitgabberim largely do not recognize other zeitgabberim as food any more than a non-infected would want to eat another non-infected. But if put into a desperate situation, they will resort to eating their own kind or even autophagia.

If the Z-virus causes infertility, how did Zero have kids?

Main article: Z-virus infertility

Zeitgabberim with ovaries generally develop eggs that do not contain the extra chromosome associated with the Z-virus. As such, conception with non-infected sperm works more or less the same as normal, although actually carrying the offspring to term is still difficult.