Aelwyn Abernant (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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apocalypsehowcomm2021-09-15 12:39 pm
aelwyn_aberration) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2021-09-15 12:39 pm
Entry tags:
LOG: i've got high hopes, lots of potential... (OTA)
Who: Aelwyn Abernant & You.
When: Early to mid september.
Where: Around town, the ADI office, around the police station.
Summary: A catch-all for all september related activities, including research, paranoia and feeding the Lightless Flame.
Warnings: Paranoia, haunting, arson, misogyny, ableism, desolation feeding, side-effects of long-term sleep deprivation.
I.
[The drowsy effect of the graveyard gets to Aelwyn, probably a bit more than expected considering she doesn’t technically have to sleep. Luckily, however, she has work to keep her busy. Despite her mixed track record as a loose cannon, and despite the judgement from several different parties that would call her dangerous and destructive, she has thrown herself into working as a researcher.
Studying these gods and finding out how others harness them, how to combat them, notable cases that have been connected to these creatures... All of this has become something of an obsession to her. Sometimes she’ll even be drifting off into sleep her head laid across the open pages of a book.
She can be found researching late at night one evening, a cup of coffee cooling beside her, that she can be found pouring over old recorded records and facts that they know about the entities. To her dissatisfaction, it doesn’t seem to be a lot. She’ll sigh, rubbing exhaustion from her eyes.]
I get that some people would just choose to be evil for the sake of it, but they don’t really talk about any positive sides to these. It’s sort of like… do you want to stop having a conscience and act purely on hunger? Yes? Cool, come sell your soul.
You have to wonder if they’re just tied to the negative of this world, right?
II.
[She’s washing her hands in the office bathrooms when it happens. She looks up with a frown and sees an illusion. It startles her, but she knows this trick.
She was a follower of the Nightmare King, afterall. If there’s anything she knows, it’s fear. So when she looks at her reflection and sees a broken version of herself, draped in the layers that the elven prison were oh so kind enough to provide her. And draped around her neck is a shadowy black cat.
She scowls.] Is this supposed to be telling me something? All it’s telling me is that you need to learn some new tricks.
[She walks out of the bathroom, annoyed. A few minutes later can be spotted at the break room staring into space and stirring a cup of coffee for approximately two minutes.
III.
[And then, on a less serious note, she can be found around the apartment building. If you smell smoke coming from her apartment, don’t worry, nothing’s on fire except her attempt at cooking! Aelwyn can be spotted frightfully trying to salvage a smoking pan full of what appears to have been an attempt at frying eggs.
This is embarrassing for her. It looks like since Angelo left, she’s struggling with the whole “living as an independent person.”
She can also be found wandering through the halls and knocking on your apartment door.] Out of coffee. Can I borrow some?
[Whatever this sleeping spell is, it’s hitting her hard.]
IV.
[Her dreams are unpleasant. To the point that she’s been getting increasingly paranoid about the presence of the Nightmare King. It’s impossible. Both Kalina and the Nightmare King might have superficial similarities to this world but they’re from Spire. She’s not even sure if this is even the Great Wheel at all anymore.
She tends to go on long late-night walks, something that seems inadvisable considering the curfew, and the nightmares. She’s not sure what she’s looking for.
That’s a lie. She’s looking for prey. She looks in multiple places, all over Gloucester, but particularly in pretentious bars or 24 hour cafes.
She’s not doing it consciously, but it takes finding it for her to realise. And she does find it one night when she sits at a small, quiet restaurant, one of those Greek poems in her hands. It’s apparently some classic, but Aelwyn’s used to reading ancient spellbooks and scrolls so the outdated language is something her brain is already fine-tuned to be able to intuit on her own.
That’s when shes hears them. Some pricks from one of the nearby prestigious colleges. They’re celebrating, and at the head of all of them is this one kid with sandy blonde hair and a cruel tilt to his smile. Aelwyn knows it well. She’s used to surrounding herself with sharks. She hears them talking.
“Did you see Adeline? She completely flunked the final.”
“Didn’t she run out shaking and crying?”
And then the ringleader’s voice, nasally and thin, speaks up. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what she was expecting. Dumb bitch probably thought she could just bat her eyelids and graduate. My father always says that women have no place in higher education.”
Aelwyn has met these people. The way they tore down Adaine as she outshone them and then spat on her when she had an anxiety attack in the middle of the entrance exam. It took every ounce of restraint not to turn to each and every one of those little snot-nosed upstarts and disintegrate them. If she were a brave person, she’d stand up and punch him, or she’d stand up and call them out, or rub his nose in defeat by humiliating him in front of all his friends.
She’s not a brave person. But she is a cruel one.
The anger oozes out of her, replaced only by something akin to hunger. I’ve found my prey.
When she finds herself outside of his school’s carpark, pulling an old trick she and Penelope used to do whenever they wanted someone out of the way, with a canister of gasoline and an elemental made to look exactly like him. The elemental repeats the few words she heard him say on repeat. “I don’t know what she was expecting.” “Dumb bitch!” “My father always says…”]
Light ‘em up, darling. [And she hands him the canister and watches as he walks right inside the carpark and in plain view of the security cameras and gets to work setting all the cars ablaze, one by one. Say goodbye to your scholarship, buddy. It’s invigorating, and the only way someone might connect it to her is that she’s next to a nearby alley, doubling over and giggling.
This is so much better than any drugs or alcohol she’s ever poisoned herself with. This is what it feels like to be alive. In the fire, she feels her fears, her powerlessness, her self-hatred, all of it melt away. And to take its place, all she feels is the warmth of the fire.
She can be found that night at Bonnies, quietly and peacefully resting in the common room with a large bottle of iced tea and what looks like a full cheesecake on the table in front of her. She’s celebrating.
Alternatively, she can be found at the Laundromat, cleaning soot and the smell of gasoline out of her shirt, notably less giddy and peaceful now, and a whole lot more paranoid about what would happen if she were to be found.]
VI.
[Wildcard something! She's generally just keeping herself busy at day and then either reading or clubbing at night. Contact me on discord or Plurk if you want something more complicated than that.]
When: Early to mid september.
Where: Around town, the ADI office, around the police station.
Summary: A catch-all for all september related activities, including research, paranoia and feeding the Lightless Flame.
Warnings: Paranoia, haunting, arson, misogyny, ableism, desolation feeding, side-effects of long-term sleep deprivation.
I.
[The drowsy effect of the graveyard gets to Aelwyn, probably a bit more than expected considering she doesn’t technically have to sleep. Luckily, however, she has work to keep her busy. Despite her mixed track record as a loose cannon, and despite the judgement from several different parties that would call her dangerous and destructive, she has thrown herself into working as a researcher.
Studying these gods and finding out how others harness them, how to combat them, notable cases that have been connected to these creatures... All of this has become something of an obsession to her. Sometimes she’ll even be drifting off into sleep her head laid across the open pages of a book.
She can be found researching late at night one evening, a cup of coffee cooling beside her, that she can be found pouring over old recorded records and facts that they know about the entities. To her dissatisfaction, it doesn’t seem to be a lot. She’ll sigh, rubbing exhaustion from her eyes.]
I get that some people would just choose to be evil for the sake of it, but they don’t really talk about any positive sides to these. It’s sort of like… do you want to stop having a conscience and act purely on hunger? Yes? Cool, come sell your soul.
You have to wonder if they’re just tied to the negative of this world, right?
II.
[She’s washing her hands in the office bathrooms when it happens. She looks up with a frown and sees an illusion. It startles her, but she knows this trick.
She was a follower of the Nightmare King, afterall. If there’s anything she knows, it’s fear. So when she looks at her reflection and sees a broken version of herself, draped in the layers that the elven prison were oh so kind enough to provide her. And draped around her neck is a shadowy black cat.
She scowls.] Is this supposed to be telling me something? All it’s telling me is that you need to learn some new tricks.
[She walks out of the bathroom, annoyed. A few minutes later can be spotted at the break room staring into space and stirring a cup of coffee for approximately two minutes.
III.
[And then, on a less serious note, she can be found around the apartment building. If you smell smoke coming from her apartment, don’t worry, nothing’s on fire except her attempt at cooking! Aelwyn can be spotted frightfully trying to salvage a smoking pan full of what appears to have been an attempt at frying eggs.
This is embarrassing for her. It looks like since Angelo left, she’s struggling with the whole “living as an independent person.”
She can also be found wandering through the halls and knocking on your apartment door.] Out of coffee. Can I borrow some?
[Whatever this sleeping spell is, it’s hitting her hard.]
IV.
[Her dreams are unpleasant. To the point that she’s been getting increasingly paranoid about the presence of the Nightmare King. It’s impossible. Both Kalina and the Nightmare King might have superficial similarities to this world but they’re from Spire. She’s not even sure if this is even the Great Wheel at all anymore.
She tends to go on long late-night walks, something that seems inadvisable considering the curfew, and the nightmares. She’s not sure what she’s looking for.
That’s a lie. She’s looking for prey. She looks in multiple places, all over Gloucester, but particularly in pretentious bars or 24 hour cafes.
She’s not doing it consciously, but it takes finding it for her to realise. And she does find it one night when she sits at a small, quiet restaurant, one of those Greek poems in her hands. It’s apparently some classic, but Aelwyn’s used to reading ancient spellbooks and scrolls so the outdated language is something her brain is already fine-tuned to be able to intuit on her own.
That’s when shes hears them. Some pricks from one of the nearby prestigious colleges. They’re celebrating, and at the head of all of them is this one kid with sandy blonde hair and a cruel tilt to his smile. Aelwyn knows it well. She’s used to surrounding herself with sharks. She hears them talking.
“Did you see Adeline? She completely flunked the final.”
“Didn’t she run out shaking and crying?”
And then the ringleader’s voice, nasally and thin, speaks up. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what she was expecting. Dumb bitch probably thought she could just bat her eyelids and graduate. My father always says that women have no place in higher education.”
Aelwyn has met these people. The way they tore down Adaine as she outshone them and then spat on her when she had an anxiety attack in the middle of the entrance exam. It took every ounce of restraint not to turn to each and every one of those little snot-nosed upstarts and disintegrate them. If she were a brave person, she’d stand up and punch him, or she’d stand up and call them out, or rub his nose in defeat by humiliating him in front of all his friends.
She’s not a brave person. But she is a cruel one.
The anger oozes out of her, replaced only by something akin to hunger. I’ve found my prey.
When she finds herself outside of his school’s carpark, pulling an old trick she and Penelope used to do whenever they wanted someone out of the way, with a canister of gasoline and an elemental made to look exactly like him. The elemental repeats the few words she heard him say on repeat. “I don’t know what she was expecting.” “Dumb bitch!” “My father always says…”]
Light ‘em up, darling. [And she hands him the canister and watches as he walks right inside the carpark and in plain view of the security cameras and gets to work setting all the cars ablaze, one by one. Say goodbye to your scholarship, buddy. It’s invigorating, and the only way someone might connect it to her is that she’s next to a nearby alley, doubling over and giggling.
This is so much better than any drugs or alcohol she’s ever poisoned herself with. This is what it feels like to be alive. In the fire, she feels her fears, her powerlessness, her self-hatred, all of it melt away. And to take its place, all she feels is the warmth of the fire.
She can be found that night at Bonnies, quietly and peacefully resting in the common room with a large bottle of iced tea and what looks like a full cheesecake on the table in front of her. She’s celebrating.
Alternatively, she can be found at the Laundromat, cleaning soot and the smell of gasoline out of her shirt, notably less giddy and peaceful now, and a whole lot more paranoid about what would happen if she were to be found.]
VI.
[Wildcard something! She's generally just keeping herself busy at day and then either reading or clubbing at night. Contact me on discord or Plurk if you want something more complicated than that.]
no subject
Power would be a good enough sell for most people, sure. Still it's absolutely not enough to promote loyalty. Even evil gods dedicated to bringing the worst out of their subjects have ways of breeding loyalty in their tyranny.
Like say... the Hunt. Hunting people down and murdering them – pretty bad, sure – but when it's a hero hunting down a monster and slaying it, well that's just justice. [She can think of a few different dogma that could go with that one. Hunting being the natural instinct of this species, murder being a true show of strength and ability that will prove them worthy.]
It just doesn't match any religious propoganda I've ever seen.
no subject
He drums his fingers on the table. No, it's even stranger that there was no strong rationalization for the way that things were - by now, somebody should've made something up and started preaching it to make everyone feel better. ]
Me neither. Bet they're a hit with cultists, but these guys don't seem like they'd catch on with the general public. Gods gotta follow human rules too, right? Since they're made for humans and all.
[ It's a matter-of-fact statement with no particular emotion behind it. There was always room for new information, but current research suggested that gods were made by and for humans. They were born from human ingenuity, and they served the important purpose of acting as a rule of nature and as a means of comfort. They can promise a soul and an afterlife to soothe the fear of death; they can promise purpose and reward for deeds well done.
So if it's not made for or by humans, then perhaps it would only make sense that it was something humans couldn't comprehend - like the concept of nothingness, or conversely, infinity. But he tries to apply human logic to the little bit of knowledge they has regardless, and comes up with nothing more than a frustrating series of questions.
After a moment, he remembers to add: ]
Well, them's the rules where I come from, anyway. People just make stuff up to fill in the gaps, so folks really eat it up. I dunno that whatever these guys are supposed to be are playing by the same rules.
no subject
It's a bit funny how easily twisted they are despite supposedly being all powerful. But that's just the gods of my universe. [And multiverse but hey, if this guy doesn't think they exist for real, that's up to him. She hasn't realised at this point that she's definitely not still in the Great Wheel.]
I suppose it's true that they could be following entirely seperate rules, though... It's not unheard of.
no subject
Besides, he is curious. His creators didn't see much need for religion or spirituality, past the history and psychology, leaving it a bit of a blind spot. So rather than dismiss the idea, he chooses to defer to her, nodding in acknowledgement of her point and continues his line of questioning: ]
Hmm... They sound pretty fragile.
[ Just like humans. How strange indeed. ]
So, d'ya think it's possible for 'em to shape one that's just mindless? Y'know, something that just acts on instinct. The kind of god one of those freaky torture cults might think up, where the cruelty's kinda the point. Or the type who just see a god as something to be feared.
[ Though perhaps there weren't enough of those for it to take such influence, or some other mechanism in place. Certainly, even most destructive cults had more proper incentive, but he'd heard of a few exceptions. It truly was amazing what humans could adapt to, and what they could normalize. ]
no subject
[She taps her chin, contemplating her question. Really, that seems like it'd be more universally shaped by the conciousness of it's followers...] It'd be harder to do something intentionally but... probably, yes, I'd say it's possible to shape them that way.
They are shaped by human fears, after all.
no subject
Well, if it was something like that, I guess it'd answer one question. There's plenty of dumb bastards obsessed with the apocalypse too, either because they're nutjobs who buy into conspiracy theories, or since they think it's means of punishment or salvation. Still doesn't explain a whole lot, though.
[ He lets out a small, frustrated sigh. Why drag in completely unrelated parties? Why latch onto ones who didn't even align with their beliefs? Even animals could determine the best marks. This almost seems random. ]
Y'know, if they're righter beings, you'd think you'd at least figure out how to communicate better.
no subject
[She did one course on religious studies so she's familiar with the divine pact and all that.
Still. She thinks they're a bunch of waffling morons. All gods are.] Sometimes they're just too prideful. Or they think humanity's beneath them. Or they're too vast and unknowable for us puny mortals to understand.
[She rolls her eyes.]