![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsehowmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
apocalypsehowcomm2022-11-16 08:23 am
- !event,
- !npc,
- delloso de la rue (d20 fey and flowers),
- john sheppard (stargate: atlantis),
- kate cordello (original),
- manji (blade of the immortal),
- mercy graves (original),
- yelena belova (mcu),
- zz_callisto (xena: warrior princess),
- zz_donna noble (doctor who),
- zz_luka kovač (er),
- zz_misty quigley (yellowjackets)
Event - Twice Shy
(cw: taxidermied animals, gaslighting, mental/memory manipulation, loss of bodily autonomy, hand injuries)
Preparations for the Thanksgiving Day Feast at Hammond Castle are well underway with the castle being closed to the public on Thursday, the big Turkey Day. Pam Ruan, HR Woman and Holiday Party Planner with a Vengeance, has been on a tear with recruiting helpers. You might be conscripted to carry dishes or final decorations over to the castle. Maybe you need some help or want to assist someone who's struggling under their own load. Pam's commandeering car space for only the largest things.
Once there and everything's set out, you might have a chance to wander the tarot card exhibit is still on display with poster-sized Major Arcana cards decorating the walls. Those aren't the only notable things around, though. There seem to be a number of taxidermied animals that have appeared around the castle. When asked about it, the caretaker, Simone, says they've always been there. Haven't they? Her expression may be a bit glassy as she explains, but that explanation is strangely compelling. They have always lived in the castle.
Been in the castle. Taxidermied creatures certainly aren't alive. Probably.
You could swear you've noticed some of them moving around the place, though. You never see the movement, but that wolf was in the other corner before, wasn't it? Next to the suits of armor. Is the elk head looking a different direction? Maybe it's someone trying to mess with you. That's probably it.
For those more suspicious souls who decide to investigate the taxidermied animals, they will seem wholly ordinary, if uncanny in the way of all taxidermy, upon a visual review. Touch them, though? Well, nothing seems to happen. They don't spring to life for an attack, but they do feel unnaturally warm, almost like there is some life still in them.
The day moves to evening, and as everyone sits down to eat, those who have touched the taxidermied animals will find their hands beginning to wander when they aren't paying attention to them. While you're digging in with your fork, the hand holding your knife might shift to the side and attempt to stab the person next to you. That steaming hot bowl of gravy you're trying to pass down the line without thinking much of it? Well, now you're pouring it into your neighbor's lap. When your full focus isn't on your hands, they seem to want to get up to their own mischief. Maybe it's time to start tying them together… and ask a friend to feed you?
(cw: supernatural thirst, blood-drinking, toxic personalities)
It's not just troubling taxidermied animals and wayward hands that are an issue with this particular Thanksgiving feast. A few sets of cursed salt and pepper shakers seem to have made their way into the decorations and supplies. They're set out on the tables and wait as the seats fill up with people. With the salt and pepper being passed around up and down and even between the two long tables, it's not difficult for them to find their way to you.
Anyone who sprinkles their food with the salt will find themselves hit with an unquenchable thirst, no matter how much they drinks. All drinks also taste stale or otherwise rancid. The only thing that makes the need abate for even the moment is the taste of blood. That might not be so hard to discover when shoving drinks in your mouth hard enough to cut your lips. Are there any people willing to lend a vein?
Anyone who sprinkles their food with the pepper will find themselves hit with an insatiable need for attention. Is the person across from you speaking to someone else? The person to your left or right? Unacceptable. You need attention like you need air, and you will do anything to get it back on you. Negative attention is still attention, right?
(cw: Injury to children, pyromania, light compulsion)
The first one is small, a trash can at the end of an alley lit ablaze with no perpetrator to be found. It doesn’t even make news. The old abandoned building at the edges of downtown makes the second page, no one was injured and some local teens are purportedly suspected in the incident. It’s not until the dive bar a couple blocks from the main street catches fire that things begin to stir. The bartender says there were no fire shots served that night, but the fire certainly seems to have started by the bartop. At least there seem to be a few witnesses, even if their testimony leaves something to be desired.
Little fires start up here and there, another trash can, a park bench, the dry goods aisle of a popular general store, the back row of a nearly full movie theatre. The police and city board rally to start up a local firewatch ad campaign but the few times a suspect is captured, local minors make most of the leads turn cold. Firebugs, people craving attention, poor home situation, whatever the blame of the week, the impulse to set something alight seems to be spreading, especially among that same group who had so loudly protested the closing of Dogtown.
It’s the playground in the middle of the day on a weekend that really puts everyone on alert. With at least two children and an adult treated for burns, reports say there’s one suspect in custody, a seventeen year old who happily claims the fires are his. All his. Because sometimes the world just needs to have a little more beauty in it and what could possibly be more beautiful than a flame? Funny how the little fires and that odd impulse continue all the same, even among some at ADI.
(cw: body horror, including bodily dissolution, fluids, bloating, eyes where there shouldn't be eyes, and severe burn injuries; arson; self harm)
It won't be until days later that it will become clear in hindsight that the string of arson ended at Holy Light Church on the night of Thanksgiving, in no small part because small acts of arson continue to crop up throughout the city afterward (and likely will for months to come, now that the idea has been planted in certain impressionable minds). But that urge to watch it all burn suddenly ebbs away on the morning of November 25, leaving only the normal human (or inhuman) amount of pyromania tucked away in any given person's brain. Local papers report that the fire apparently started in the kitchen of the church's community hall and was prevented from spreading further by the quick-thinking of church members attending a community dinner. Officially no one's even certain whether it was actually arson at all, or merely a very unfortunately-timed accident.
Nor is the connection immediately clear when reports start coming in on Black Friday about some kind of blob or slime monster in the streets of Gloucester (and when ADI, naturally, shoulders the work of suppressing those reports). The sight of the thing is, apparently, horrendous: witnesses report something less human-shaped than trying to be so, with jiggling, boneless limbs and weeping, bloodshot eyes that seem to float within its mass, surfacing at random points on the thin, stretched skin that encases the creature. The creature favors dark, out of the way spots–indeed, the more clear-headed witnesses indicate that the monster was more keen to run (or rather, ooze) away than attack.
Patrolling to find the creature takes immediate precedence, but even those not actively searching may be lucky (or unlucky) enough to come across it over the next few days as it eludes capture. That sound in the alley–that's someone in pain, breathing through clenched teeth and occasionally sobbing as something drip-drip-drips onto the pavement. Come closer and you'll see it: something that can't be human, that mustn't be human, pressing itself under a restaurant's heat vent or holding a lighter against its own skin with clumsy, fused fingers. The air reeks of acetone, blood, and wax, and when the creature sees that it's not alone it snaps to attention, both eyes surfacing and a mouth splitting the shape of its head where there was none a moment ago. Its voice is one that some members of ADI have heard before, though the humor and warmth in Pyre's tone is gone now, leaving only raw anger and fear.
"Get away from me!"
- GENERAL - Pyre will both be available for NPC interaction and threading with an RNG group of players. Please bear in mind that the game does not have an easy resurrection mechanic. Characters who die are dead unless there is some sort of Entity intervention and they are reborn as avatars. Plan your character torment accordingly!
- TOUCHED (November 24) - Beyond being warm to the touch with seemingly life-like fur, there's nothing else notable about the taxidermied animals. Cutting them open reveals that they're just stuffed with what you'd expect to see. They are never seen moving, but they do move around the castle. Trying to set up cameras on the animals will result in momentary flashes of static before they move. It's simply not possible to capture evidence of them moving. Simone Clark, the castle caretaker, will tell you the animals has always been in whatever new place it was before if asked. For perceptive individuals, she seems to be affected by something, but then her words are wildly convincing, as well, and you might find yourself doubting what you saw with the animals moving. Characters who lose control of their hands will find the effect fades after a few hours. By the next day, if anyone returns to the castle after the party, the taxidermied animals are gone. Simone remembers nothing about them being there.
- FUEL TO THE FIRE (24 November) - The effects of the salt and pepper may be combined and the general effect will last for a few hours. Characters who feel compelled toward thirst will only feel okay when drinking blood (it does not have to be human). As soon as they stop drinking, the thirst returns. However, their physiology is still their physiology. Drinking large quantities of blood is likely to make a human very sick, indeed. Characters are welcome to try to find the source of the problem and destroy the salt and pepper shakers when they're found. There are as many sets of cursed shakers as might be narratively convenient for folks who want to find them to do so.
- STRIKE A MATCH (15-24 November) - Characters are welcome to help with ADI’s investigations into these incidents after the bar catches fire and to notice the smaller fires and help put them out before and after the big incidents. Those who go digging will be able to find that only some of the fires can be attributed to local teens and not all of them even solidly enough to do anything about. The bar and movie theater in particular seem to have no cause and no known witnesses. While no one in ADI will feel compelled to commit arson, they might catch themselves staring into a fire for an extended period of time, almost hypnotized, and those of a younger age group might feel compelled to carry a lighter around, just in case something might need to be burned. Those who look into the bar fire will find it’s eerily similar to those reported along the coast, including a bit of wax at the scene and witnesses who claim the person drinking the shot seemed to light it themselves.
- WATCH HIM BURN (25-28 November) - Please reply to this comment for threads with blob!Pyre. Characters may encounter him alone or in pairs (while players may form groups of three or more, we would advise against it in the interest of quicker play). Please keep in mind that Pyre's ultimate fate will be a matter of player vote and will be decided at the end of the month; if characters attempt to kill or capture him in the course of these event threads, he will escape by melting and flowing down a storm drain.
no subject
That's not good.
Rodney's mouth opens, ready to comment on Sheppard's erratic behavior but then his features sharpen with genuine worry when he takes a step back to analyze the whole situation.
"You're acting like me. With the food."
He remembers how the power bar and any real food made him want to rinse his mouth.
"What else have you tried?"
no subject
"You're right."
Except it seems to be drink-related, rather than food this time.
"A bunch of stuff, everything. Orange juice, beer, champagne, and I'm--thirsty, it's only getting worse."
Except. When he was licking his finger. He looks down at the cut in dawning horror, and back to Rodney. No, this can't be--
--he squeezes his finger, getting more blood out of it, before licking at it again.
The thirst stops the moment he gets a taste.
"Oh, crap."
no subject
"What? What is it?"
Rodney turns to squint at him, scrutinizing him sharply.
He looks at his finger, momentarily distracted by his -- seriously, does he have to do that so shamelessly out in the open, tongue and all? -- not quite catching on.
"What's going on?"
no subject
And that means he can’t stop licking.
Which is also another problem since his blood is a finite resource.
He looks at Rodney with slowly dawning horror. If this doesn’t stop anytime soon…
“What-what about you? Did you notice anything, are you feeling weird at all? Thirsty?”
no subject
Rodney stares at him, back at his finger and... oh. Oh, so that's why he keeps-- right. Okay. Focus.
"What, seriously?"
A beat.
"... Show me your teeth."
no subject
There's a beat.
Okay, look, if he's suddenly become a vampire he wouldn't mind getting fangs. He bares his teeth, but they look like ordinary human teeth, at least.
What kind of crappy vampire would have normal human teeth, anyway? That would be the least menacing vampire in all of history...
"Well?"
no subject
Rodney squints at him in disbelief.
"Have you been a secret vampire all this time? Because if you've been holding out on me on that, I swear..."
He leans forward, squinting at his mouth and huffs when there's no apparent evidence of that. No Nosferatu jokes, apparently. (Yet.)
"Nothing. Maybe you're like a... herbivore vampire?"
no subject
...the longest look. "At least I don't think I am. I mean, y'know, dental work and biting the heck out of my tongue once in awhile by accident. That kind of thing. Not that I've been--drinking blood for some reason!"
...another beat.
"A herbivore vampire? Wouldn't a herbivore vampire drink like, I dunno, tomato juice!?"
no subject
The space version doesn't count.
"... Maybe you just haven't figured out how to extend your fangs yet. Have you tried?"
He's looking at him expectantly.
Come on.
Try.
no subject
...he tries to think of every vampire movie he's seen and peruse the lore rather quickly in his head.
"Wouldn't I know if I was a secret vampire!?"
Unless it just happens, like that's how secret vampire lifespans work, you just woke up as one one day...
"I'm not gonna..."
...unless.
He holds up a finger, trying for a moment. How would he even--what, was there a muscle, was it like a snake's fangs, how--
"...anything?"
no subject
"Nothing."
It's strangely disappointing. Not that he wants Sheppard to be a vampire but it would have been kind of cool? And it makes the whole thing a lot more mysterious now.
He huffs.
"Okay. Maybe it's-- vampirism without the fangs. Evolutionary progress. Like, maybe the fangs were necessary once upon a time before people had knives..."
His voice trails off and he looks up at Sheppard suspiciously.
"You're not planning on cutting people and drinking their blood, right?"
Right?
cw: gross monster imagery john pls
“Wow, evolutionarily advanced vampires? Wouldn’t they just have like, leech mouths then? Giant suckers for a face? Or like those things in the oceans with the teeth, y’know, lampreys?”
Actually he hopes that’s not a thing here so he’ll just move on.
“Of course not!”
…not yet.
“We’re not there yet. I’m okay as long as I’m at least tasting a little blood. So that’s good, right? That’s what we know. I figure I got a long way to go before I start getting dizzy…”
cw: disgusting leech talk by two idiot boys
Rodney just makes a face at him because are you kidding him right now?
"Okay, first of all? If all the face was one giant sucker, you couldn't possibly attach yourself to a neck properly. Shoulder and jawline, it'd all get in the way, and you'd probably couldn't get good suction going, like when you vehicle mounts keep falling off your windshield."
He holds up a finger.
"That said, if I even see a hint of leech mouth on you, Sy Snootles, I am putting you in the biggest fish tank they have at the labs."
Don't test him.
"Also, I'm pretty sure the human body isn't supposed to actually drink blood, not even its own, so we better figure something out quickly."
cw: it just keeps getting worse
He motions his hands at Rodney's throat. "Imagine leech lips completely wrapping around your neck. That would work."
...Sy Snootles, huh?
"Okay, you know what? I would break out of that fish tank and you'd be my first target."
He crosses his arms, and holds his finger up. The blood's slowing down and he reaches over to grab his knife from his belt, hesitantly.
"This is gonna suck real bad until then."
no subject
Except there suddenly is a knife in all this after all and Rodney eyes Sheppard with a mix of alarm and suspicion.
"Wait. Waitwaitwait, what are you doing? Don't do that? Whatever it is you're going to do, don't, and talk to me instead."
cw: self-harm
And he’s suddenly very glad that Wraith feeding mechanisms are in their hands.
“You don’t get it—I literally can’t stop.”
His finger has already stopped bleeding and he can feel the desperate thirst kick up again. It’s becoming utterly unbearable, and there’s something a little frantic and wild in his eyes as the seconds pass. This is actually …yeah, he’s getting worried here but there’s no time to stop and think about how bad this is gonna get. He pulls his sleeve up and holds the knife to his arm, the point digging into the skin.
“Just—I’m just getting a bit. Just a little bit, just enough to stop making me feel like I’m losing it.”
cw: self-harm
Rodney stares when John puts the knife to his own skin, horrified by the action and even more so by the reason.
"It really is like me with the food. Like, I knew eating it was bad for me but I couldn't stop..."
Except he didn't try to eat himself, just... inedible things. What if a little blood wasn't enough? What if John would keep cutting at himself, bleeding himself dry? Making himself sick in the process?
"We... we should get you back to ADI."
He reaches out to grab John's arm in an attempt to stop him from cutting.
"Come on, you can hold out until then!"
cw: self-harm
There frantic worry is starting to come out in his voice.
“I’m gonna bite somebody, and that’ll just be messy for everyone,” he says, because it’s easier to joke about the horror.
He digs the knife in his arm, and immediately blood wells up. He brings the cut to his face, desperately licking at it.
He can’t go on like this.
“I need—something—get a cup, mug, something. Find me a mug.”
cw: self-harm
"What, should I make it a Venti!?"
He's only yelling because he cares.
But a mug is probably better than John sucking on bloody wounds, so he actually rushes over to the banquet to grab an opaque glass and bring it back to him.
"Okay, I know we've done some disgusting things in the past but this is very high up there!"
cw: self-harm
He puts his knife away, not before licking the blood off it. Rodney thankfully comes back with one and he holds it under his arm, catching a steady stream of blood.
“You’re telling me, I’m the one who’s gotta deal with the inevitable stomach ache later, if this really is just some kind of compulsion and—“
Y’know. He’s not actually a vampire.
He looks at Rodney, worried.
“I’m—I’m okay as long as I’m drinking it. Even just tiny sips are fine. It’s when I’m not that it gets…bad.”
He uses the pause to bring the mug up and sip it before putting it back under his arm.
“Like, I really might jump someone, bad.”
no subject
While he tries to figure this out.
"When did it start? Did you do anything special? Saw any Eldritch abominations?"
He pauses, then crosses his arms, squinting at him.
"Made out with someone who spent a suspiciously long time nuzzling your neck?"
no subject
He wishes he could get greedy. All he wants to do is gulp it down, but he doesn’t. Just barely.
“Nothing different. I did touch one of those taxidermy things, and then I swear my hand started getting a kind of its own but that wore off, and then I ate dinner…did you eat dinner? Maybe it was something we ate, we could compare notes…”
A beat.
“No! That’s it, if I grow fangs you’re the first to get bit.”
cw: food and blood combination
Rodney looks around and then, with a triumphant a-hah!, finds the plate with the marshmallows. He grabs one, dipping it into the blood (with the appropriate grimace), then holds it out for Sheppard.
"There. Suck on that. Should at least slow you down. And yes, of course I ate dinner. Where's your plate? I ate everything, how about you?"
He's not making a joke. He really did eat everything. In no specific order.
cw: food and blood combination
They totally are. But the marshmallows are genius, the blood tastes so good to him right now that the marshmallows only enhance it.
"Fine."
He takes the marshmallow and sucks on it.
"...everything?" Then again, this is Rodney, so it probably is everything. "Okay, so if you ate everything, it probably isn't the food. What did you drink?"
He glances back at the table and catches sight of the condiments.
"...what if it was the ketchup? Or the salt or pepper? Or butter? Did you use any of those?"
no subject
Business as usual.
He follows John's gaze and brightens when he spots salt and pepper.
"Oh there they are! Been looking all over for them."
... Apparently it didn't stop him from eating everything anyways. He'll just grab them for later. Once this whole blood situation is resolved.
"Wait, you think they could be responsible?"
(no subject)
(no subject)