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apocalypsehowcomm2022-02-16 05:36 am
- !event,
- bucky barnes (mcu),
- kate cordello (original),
- katrina (siren),
- manji (blade of the immortal),
- martin blackwood (tma),
- mercy graves (original),
- yelena belova (mcu),
- zz_andrew jaeger (original),
- zz_anthony j. crowley (good omens),
- zz_aziraphale (good omens),
- zz_beauregard lionett (critical role),
- zz_bruno madrigal (encanto),
- zz_caduceus clay (critical role),
- zz_callisto (xena: warrior princess),
- zz_donna noble (doctor who),
- zz_garner cinderbrooke (original)
Event - Heavy
(cw: claustrophobia, existential dread, power loss, victim-blaming, time distortion, supernatural compulsion and hunger)
After the cold snap and plumbing issues comes the calm. For a few days, at least, nothing seems to break. Or break more than normal where the Flophouse is concerned. A heavy snow sweeps through and covers the streets. Not a blizzard, but thick white fluff that forms a blanket overnight. The snowplows aren't prepared and it's simply… quiet. People stay indoors, waiting for the weather to clear a bit. There are light flurries throughout the next few days, topping off the snowfall, and for the most part, the city just shuts down.
Even ADI puts out a notice that employees should stay home. Stay safe, stay cocooned in what warmth you have. Just… stay. Each day the message comes out from a generic work email, help@adi.com:
Shelter in place. No work today. Stay safe. We'll get by without you.
The next day is the same. The snow piles higher overnight, covering windows and freezing doors shut.
Shelter in place. No work today. Stay safe. We're s̴̳͘͠ͅt̶̨͂̍r̵̯̼͊͝ŭ̷͚̳g̶̠͋̓g̴̳̱̔͘l̸̤̻̎i̷̭͑͠ń̵̗͜͝g̷̤͂, but we'll get by.
Day after day. Frost creeps into the corridors of the ADI housing complex and the Flophouse. There is no food or other supplies coming and it feels like the hours are stretching out more and more.
Shelter in place. No work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. We can't keep doing this, but we have to.
Attempts to leave the housing areas will be met with walls of snow that appear to be impossibly high. Around the flophouse, especially, it's as though they've been placed into the bottom of an icy hole. The walls stretch up higher than anyone can climb or fly, with only a pinprick of bluish light coming down from the opening above, deeper than anyone can dig through. Not even a magical portal or beam of heat can get through. There's just a wall of snow and/or ice through the portal and more snow beyond the beam. What's more, anyone who has supernatural abilities or is tied to a patron, even those not actively trying to feed that patron, will find themselves feeling increasingly drained, like something is sapping away whatever reserves they have, leaving them hungrier and hungrier, their powers waning by the minute, with a very limited set of options to feed upon.
S̸͉͗ḣ̷̦ȩ̵͒l̷͈̍t̸͎̽e̵̺̓ř̵̠ in place. No work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. Why aren't they coming? This is their fault.
S̶͔͆h̸̅ͅȅ̴̮l̵̬̈́t̷̯́e̴̥̐ř̷̙ ̶̳̕ì̷̲n̵͓͌ ̷̮̋p̵̟̈́l̶̢̎a̷̺͠c̷̻̈́ḙ̵̊.̷̦̇ ̴̬̀N̸͕͌o̵͎̊ work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. Why aren't ỹ̸̡͐ͅô̷͕̫ù̶̟̣͊ coming? Ḟ̴͓i̷̤͗x̶̨͝ ̴̜͒t̵̯̅h̴͔͛i̸͖̽s̶̱̚!
((ooc: Plain text versions of all messages are located here (LINK). You can also hover your mouse over the distorted text for hover text translations.))
(cw: warped perceptions, memory-loss, implied trauma, supernaturally-induced feelings of missing out)
You've missed a step.
After what seems an interminable time, someone is finally able to tunnel through, to get out of the massive snowy prison everyone has been trapped in and-
And the city looks normal. Checking the wall you just came through, it's not actually there. As soon as one person makes it out, the effect collapses for everyone. There's a wintry wonderland of Gloucester beyond, and it seems like things have gone on without everyone. But there is a sense in the air that something has happened, something earth-shattering that everyone missed out on.
People on the streets seem to have a look about them. Haunted? Something happened, but when they're questioned about it, they can't seem to come up with an answer as to what. They just seem… confused, overwhelmed. Yes, something happened. No, they can't tell you what. Weren't you here for it? Didn't you see it? Didn't you feel it? How could you have missed something that big?
That feeling will sit with characters as time passes, dragging down on them. It may even begin to feel like a physical weight for the most affected. You missed it. You could have done something to change things, but you missed it.
(cw: flooding; natural disasters; damage to homes, workplaces, and possessions; references to burial, suffocation, crushing, and murder; supernaturally induced anxiety, responsibility fatigue, and feelings of inadequacy; illness.)
The feeling of having missed something only intensifies back at ADI headquarters. It looks as though the storm itself attacked the building; several exterior doors have been broken off their hinges, ice expanded within the metal past its breaking point, and the expansive water damage and muck ground into the carpets, walls, and battered elevators conjure images of an indoor avalanche…or a glacier pushing its way through, slow but biting cold and utterly inexorable.
There's no time to dwell on what's happened, on the days of hunger and isolation nor whatever disaster occurred here. There's too much to do, too much to fix, one crisis after another. There's the obvious problem: the need to repair the building and proof it against the cold wind that still blows in across the foyer, but no matter one's work area there is more to do than can be done. Endless requests and projects flood in from every quarter, all of them urgent, all of them important. As soon as one thing is finished, three more problems emerge: contracts to manage, investigations to be made into reported phenomena, glitching computers to repair, vandals to repel from the gaping wound that is the lobby entrance in the middle of the night–the list goes on, and on, and on.
Rumors circulate, stories about a prisoner in the depths of the building's secret basements who disappeared into the crushing ice and grit that had filled the cells, disagreements about whether it was a rescue or if the unnamed prisoner was suffocated, snuffed out by some indiscriminately vengeful force. No one seems to know the truth; no one even seems to know the name of the prisoner, who they were, what they had done to end up there. No one has the time to look too deeply into it; even head of security Neil Grace, is caught leaping from task to task, never catching up long enough to turn his attention to the matter in any meaningful capacity.
The struggle to keep up, the futile effort to keep one's head above water, never relents. No matter one's priorities at work or at home, something is always wrong, always in need of attention, the knowledge of things undone needling at the edge of consciousness like a toothache in one's soul. The Flophouse is in a disastrous state worse even than ADI headquarters, a wild-eyed Bonnie all but pouncing on residents with an endless list of tasks to fix it, to make the building livable again. At the ADI apartments, exhausted caretaker Benny Holt seems to traipse up and down the halls at all hours of the day and night with his toolbelt, gaunt and exhausted and tapping at doors in reply to requests to fix plumbing, lighting, and water damage that never seem to stay fixed. Local staff and interdimensional residents alike begin to fall ill, bodies and minds burning out under the strain, but giving yourself time to rest and heal means piling more work on those around you.
There is no time. There is no rest. There is only the work you are failing to complete.
(cw: claustrophobia, suffocation or near-suffocation)
As if that isn’t enough, there’s still investigative work to be done. Once again, it seems as if Coffins Beach is a site of interest, as ADI has been tipped off that there might be something (or things) in the water. Again.
For safety’s sake - and perhaps to make sure that no one collapses out there alone - pairs are sent out to the beach to keep an eye on the water and to see if anything interesting has washed up. Orders are to both watch the water and walk along the beaches and through the dunes nearby.
Watching the water doesn't seem to yield any results, no matter how long it's observed. Nothing washes ashore either. But then there's the dunes. Sooner or later, it seems like climbing them and walking among them is all there is to do. Anyone who has spent any time at Coffins Beach might notice that they seem a bit larger than they have been in months past. Not inconceivably, but noticeably. There are dunes tall enough to scale the sides up to the top, though some are still no more than little mounds.
It doesn't matter which, when you fall into it. Small hill or gentle mound, one minute you’re walking on the surface. The next minute, as you put your foot down, it begins to sink. It can't be sinking, of course, sand dunes on a beach don't have quicksand. They’re nothing but dense piles of sand. You can't fall into a sand dune.
You are falling into a sand dune. There’s a hole in the sand, just wide enough for your body and you have fallen into it. Perhaps you're a little bit lucky and your partner witnessed it. Maybe you aren't and you suddenly just disappear. It's a long fall, though, down a tube of sand that seems hard-packed around the edges. At first. The drop is just far enough that light can be seen from above, but not the top of the hole itself. Call out. You might be heard. And maybe your partner is already trying to get you out.
But the moment you hit the bottom, it seems like the hole becomes unstable. Especially if someone is above and trying to reach down. Even if they're not, though, sand begins to crumble from the edges and sides of the tunnel, falling down on the body trapped at the bottom of it. A slow trickle, not a burial. Not yet. Still, it could be, if rescue doesn't come, if the person left up above can't dig you out. Meanwhile, the sand falls and falls, pressing down on limbs and creeping up your body. It’s cold and struggling only seems to make the sand fall faster.
Surely you’ll be rescued before it covers you completely. Or soon after. Surely.
- GENERAL - Players are welcome to play NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompts should be sufficient and ordinary people will act like… ordinary people! You're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. Please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
- DEEP (16-20 February) - Characters will be trapped in their homes for five days, confined to either the Flophouse or the individual apartment buildings within the ADI complex. It will feel like significantly longer, even for characters with fully accurate internal clocks. Travel outside of these bounds will be impossible, even with the use of supernatural abilities. The network will be fully operational; though, not the regular internet or anything beyond the internal ADI network. Characters will also receive periodic messages from help@adi.com begging for help, even as they order everyone to shelter in place.
Characters who are outside their homes when the snow starts will find they're able to get inside just fine, but will not be able to get out again. Characters may be trapped with people who are not their standard roommates/at their usual housing, if they're unlucky (or lucky).
- CHASM (21-24 February) - The first character(s) to break through the snow barrier will feel an especially powerful weight fall upon them before there's suddenly just… nothing. The snow walls are gone. Even if another character was in the middle of digging through, the snow is just there one minute, then gone the next. Characters will experience a profound sense that they have missed something. This may dissipate within a day or maintain over several days. Anyone trying to question residents of the city will receive confusion and incredulity, but no answers. There is no indication that anyone seemed to notice the walls of snow. Even some of the natives at ADI will be perplexed. All non-native NPCs and some native NPCs will have experienced the same thing as the PC characters.
- STUCK (21-28 February) - The need to be doing more than they can will be ever-present for all NPCs and player characters. Those who would choose to eschew responsibilities at work or try to reprioritize will find that there is always something in need of doing that is important to them, to the point where new problems may seem to arise in impossibly, almost cartoonishly quick succession. Tasks and problems can be mundane matters related to work, building repair, and living spaces; as well as minor supernatural occurrences similar to past Dogtown TDM prompts (players are welcome to make up small supernatural encounters; anything that would affect other characters beyond a single thread should be submitted as a player plot). Characters may find themselves feeling mentally foggy and struggling to focus on core issues in the face of this inundation of needs from the people and environment around them, and may fall sick from overwork. These effects will overlap with both the Chasm and Sink prompts.
- SINK (24-28 February) - Characters who find themselves falling into one of the dunes will end up in what appears to be a vertical tunnel that is definitely too high to climb back out of, regardless of how tall the dune actually seemed to be when they were on top of it. The temperature of the sand is very cold and in addition to possible suffocation, characters may find themselves slowly freezing. Struggling or rescue attempts will quickly make the walls of the tunnel unstable. Additionally, the tunnel may not be exactly straight, depositing characters slightly or more than slightly off of their original falling point.
oh dunk shoutout to my bad notifs
But base level, there's a very real reassurance to how many of them are confused and concerned and frustrated by all this. He can't imagine how much worse it would be if somehow nobody else had the feeling. ]
It must be something to do with her. The timing alone is suspect. As much as I believe in an occasional coincidence, there's a level of impact where the concept stops holding up to scrutiny.
Oof, I know that roll. DW's been having a lot of problems lately!
Does all of this feel, I dunno, weird to you? It was busy before, but nothing like this. It feels like there's more work being made than is reasonable, even with something wild happened.
no subject
Yes. Yes, it feels very strange. Like everything has gone wrong purely for the sake of it. Keeps going wrong, rather. [ Piling up. Turning up new important things by the minute for no apparent reason. ] A bit like--
[ What's the way to put it. ]
A bit like we're meant to have our attention kept. Rather than letting it stray towards all that information that doesn't exist. Clever doing, I suppose. Whoever may or may not be doing it.
no subject
no subject
[ One of the many reasons why humanity is worth the continued investment. It's a list too long for listing, but it's real, and he loves them. ]
Can't say bureaucracy frightens me personally. More of an inconvenience. But I've been dealing in that sort of thing practically since I was, um. Born. [ Made. Same difference, sort of. ] I'm sure it must be awful for quite a lot of other people here, though.
no subject
Yeah, and just the volume. Everyone's got to deal with it at some point. Dunno what we can do to stop it. Just-just refuse to do it?
[But then that's adding more to someone else's plate.]
Think we could organize a temporary strike for everyone's mental health?
no subject
[ He doesn't know if it's textbook angelic to think that organizing a strike sounds fun. Then again, he can't say that he's been textbook angelic for quite a long while now, either.
If Aziraphale has always secretly loved the crossroads between free will and a bit of drama, that's his business.
And honestly, something's got to give on this front. Better if it's done on their own terms. ]
It couldn't hurt to keep that option on the metaphorical table. I've got a friend who might be very handy for that sort of thing. Likes kicking up an occasional ruckus.
no subject
[Do give her a name for a fellow rabble-rouser, please? Even if it's not for organizing a strike, Donna's interested.]
no subject
[ Oh right. Humans. Names. ]
Anthony Crowley. Bit tall, red hair, likes his dark colors. He's quite lovely once you get to know him. Which you absolutely cannot tell him I told you, under any circumstances.
[ He'd never hear the end of it. ]
no subject
You fancy him, then?
no subject
Young lady, I most certainly do not. [ He loves him which is technically different. ] He's just-- persnickety about being complimented. I'd never hear the end of it.
no subject
Hmm... so you don't want him to know you fancy him. Right. Mum's the word, mate.
no subject
He'll have to evaluate whether Crowley's properly picked up on it and not mentioned anything as an easy let-down on his own time. ]
Yes, well, best kept that way, thank you. [ A confirmation, rather than a threat. Old pastime, taking people at their word on sight. ] Everyone has their little boundaries.
no subject
[Her eyes are on him. He's a distraction from her suffering, that makes him exceptionally interesting in the moment.]
Is there some reason you don't want him knowing? Could be interested. Never know if you don't try, do you? Carpe Diem!
no subject
[ He stops shuffling through papers and squints down at the one that's come to the top, pulling a pen from his shirt pocket to write on it. It's starting to become quite apparent that a lot of these things got sent out in an incomplete rush. No reason not to take care of the ones he actually understands if it means he doesn't have to get right back to touring the whole campus. ]
But I'm sure I appreciate the spirit of what you're saying.
no subject
[They've reached the end of her Latin knowledge. Everything's so much easier with the TARDIS translating in her head.]
But fair enough. If you ever need a wingwoman... that's the sort of busy I don't mind being.
no subject
I suppose I know what you mean. Much more fun than filing. If you've had your eye on anyone, let me know. More than happy to offer the same in turn.
[ Nosy and bored with paperwork: a true power team. ]
no subject
[A sigh. She should get back to work.]
Raincheck on the help? Maybe... I dunno. Maybe if we ever get a weekend. Thanks, though. And good luck with Anthony.