Event - Becoming

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Becoming

The message below goes out to all devices on the ADI network on March 16th.

un: n.lehrer

To All Staff,

We have received a tip from a former client and have conducted follow-up investigation into an art and science exhibit located in Buffalo, New York. There have been sightings of unusual animals in the Buffalo area and several people have gone missing after visiting the exhibit.

Anyone wishing to aid in the investigation should report to Pam Ruan to arrange for group travel to and from Buffalo. Austin Yeats, whom some of you may be familiar with from our mission in Wolf Pen last year, will be your contact for this work in the field. I will be joining at the end of the week if this issue has not been resolved.

To be explicit: As with all of ADI's assignments outside of Gloucester, participation here is voluntary. We have other work close to home that always needs addressing. Dogtown continues to show troubling anomalies. Be safe as you can, folks, and always travels in groups. We all need that reminder sometimes. ADI isn't a place well-suited for lone wolves.

- Nia Lehrer, Warden

➥ Exhibiting Odd Behaviors

(cw: thalassophobia, uncanny valley, scopophobia, mannequin-like creatures, potential for limb loss)

You’ve been on a bus before. Probably. Maybe. Well, if you volunteered to go check out the touring Art Exhibit in Buffalo, you’re about to be well acquainted with them. The nine hour drive on the ADI-provided bus is…fine. For a bus. Uneventful, assuming you and your neighbor get along. There’s an economy hotel ready and waiting for weary travelers to bunk up (two to a room,) get some rest, and then head out the next day for the exhibit to open its doors.

The Buffalo Museum of Science itself is a decent size, two stories with wide halls all painted a neutral gray-beige to better lend focus to the art installations it hosts. There’s plenty to see here, the usual offerings of the museum from traditional art pieces, to massive dinosaur skeletons, to intricate sculptures on dais. The wing housing the traveling exhibit and the point of the trip is its own sight to see. Dynamic lighting around a large square opening creates the visual effect of the frame twisting and warping in place. Just outside, an effusive sign declaring “Seeing the Unseeable: Where Science Meets Art” stands, seeming to melt and reform on its supports while welcoming visitors of all ages.

Inside the exhibit is a decently sized array of art from canvas pieces that offer twisting perspectives and looping images to displays of light that guests can interact with to warp their reality. Step into a plastic dome to make it seem all the color has been leached from your skin, walk through a tunnel that seems like the walls reach in to squeeze you and the floor rises to meet you without either moving.

A few exhibits are even more…lively. A medium-sized sculpture of what look like stick-figure men made of twisted iron all climb over each other, with the tallest one reaching towards the light that shines above it. At least it does for a moment. There’s an odd creaking and tapping as you pass it by. Turn back to look and that top-most figure is missing along with a few friends. The tapping of little metal feet carries the figures off and around the corner. Be mindful if you try to chase after it, there’s no running allowed in the building!

A hall-staged exhibit that warps sound to turn a whisper to a shout and vice-versa sits near an unassuming set of five portraits, each lovingly rendered down to the smallest, perfect, detail. A heart rests on a bush like a berry and those who venture nearby can hear the gentle, steady, beat of it, despite its stillness. A portrait of a richly brown eye stares out over the room. Except for when it’s staring at you. Is it always staring at you? Surely not. The hand seems innocuous enough, though pass by it and the sensation of someone grazing past your arm passes too. The one of a foot is perfectly innocent, even if an odd smell permeates the area. The last portrait is one of a mouth in every wrinkled and lined detail it has to offer. It boasts a sign that simply says “Do not touch. Do not feed.”

One of the largest pieces on offer takes up the entire end of a hallway, the lights leading up to the expanse of deep blue on canvas growing more and more dim as the sounds of the museum drift away. It’s nearly peaceful, if a bit chilly off in this corner. Isolating. Distant. Stand there long enough, and a sharp eye might notice the canvas ripple at the edges like the edges of a pond. A low gurgle and pop of bubbles highlights the deep, muffled, quality of the acoustics as though far beneath the surface of the sea. Movement at the corner of your eye might catch your attention and there, in the distance of the gloom, is a black speck…and it’s growing larger. Closer and closer the blotch looms until it begins to take an eel-like shape. It moves too quickly in the gloom to see much more, but the massive reflection of an eye fills the floor-to-ceiling canvas as the subject of the piece seems to pass you by.

Perhaps the oddest thing of all about this exhibit is the fact plenty of people seem to pass by or look at the same exhibits as you pause briefly, and then move on as though nothing at all of note was seen.

➥ A Puzzling Evolution

(cw: body horror, transformation, uncanny valley, mention of tooth-loss)

Can you figure out which path leads to human evolution?

The sign is prominently featured in front of multiple displays around the museum, each with an interactive screen. At the start, it shows a microorganism floating in an ocean. Those interacting with the display will be given two choices: EAT MORE or HIDE BETTER. Questions continue in this vein as the organism grows more complex and takes its leave of the ocean… and possibly returns. GROW MORE LEGS or GROW WINGS? SPECIALIZE or EAT EVERYTHING? The majority of the choice paths lead to the extinction of the evolving species, sadly, while every other path that provides a final evolved form seems to lead to either a weasel or a crab. How do you get to a human via evolution? It may yet remain a mystery, unless you look through the rest of the exhibit, perhaps!

You may have considered the interactive display a frustrating (and potentially inaccurate) annoyance, or perhaps you enjoyed the game you played that led you to a photo of a cute crab or weasel, and didn't think anything else of it as the whole evolution sequence can take rather a long time to get through. In either case, it's at least an hour later before you start to notice that something is… off. Your neck is starting to feel oddly stiff, like you've been craning it. Or there's a spot of hard skin on the back of your hand that's starting to itch. When did that turn up? Are you allergic to something? Maybe it's not a physical change, but rather, something that's more in your head. You're starting to feel an urge to find a nice, dark place to hide. It might be better if it were a bit moist. Or perhaps something earthy, just so long as it's somewhere you can watch from.

The changes will become more rapidly apparent over the next several hours as people's necks, bodies, and faces elongate, whiskers pop out of their faces, tails from their backsides, and their human teeth begin to fall out, replaced by tiny fangs. Others might find sections of their skin turning to a caparace-like consistency as the hair falls out. Their bodies becoming armored and segmenting themselves in odd ways as new limbs push forth. It would seem that this is how 'human' evolution happens. It's a potentially excruciating process for some, while others might experience milder pain or discomfort as their bodies shift and warp. Or their minds trend toward a more animalistic mindset.

What's worse is that the transformation effects are almost difficult to spot at first thanks to the enforced glamour that everyone who is part of ADI has placed on them. That seems to struggle with the rapid changes occurring, though, and might even break down completely for some before reestablishing itself. The monsters are out and about in the museum, it would seem.

Everyone will need to work together to locate and destroy the interactive displays before they find themselves becoming the animals they've learned about in the museum. Work quickly now, and the changes might not be permanent… for some.

Probably also best to do that and leave quickly, the police being what they are. ADI will happily provide rapid transport away from the museum and Buffalo once work has been completed. The lead field agent, Austin, will just have to deal with the locals, himself, in the ensuing fallout. It's probably fine. And those live weasels and crabs that have apparently been found around the museum grounds? That's also probably fine. Curious that ADI personnel don't appear to have transformed nearly as quickly as those who aren't part of ADI. You had a fighting chance, at least!

➥ For All Your Burning Questions

(cw: references to chronic pain and body horror; likely references to domestic abuse)

26M ex-desolation avatar, GBBO fan, part petroleum jelly now ig, AMA

The message appears on the network shortly after the volunteers depart for Buffalo, conveniently timed to provide entertainment for their bus ride as well as a distraction for those who stayed back in Gloucester. Screened to make it private for only ADI's off-worlders, the text message originates from the account of Bonnie Gale of Bonnie's Flophouse fame. This is unusual both because Bonnie rarely, if ever, makes an appearance on the network (who knew she still had an account?)...and because it's not sent by Bonnie at all.

Hey ADI offworlders, as the title says I'm your resident circus boy retired from lighting stuff on fire now (thanks for not killing me btw). Every waking moment is agony but what goes around comes around i guess. This is Pyre for everyone I met before and if I didn't meet you before it's a long story? It turns out my dad wanted to end the world and the guy I thought was like a dad was just making me into a monster to help him do that, and they're both dead now and I get why you killed them but I'm not going to say it doesn't suck.

Anyway sorry for setting all that stuff on fire around town, I was going through some things and I'm working on myself now. I'm an open book, ask me anything. No pictures tho.

For at least a few days, the private post flies under the radar and Pyre will be available to bounce back answers to questions about his life pre- and post-avatarhood, his attempts at the apocalypse, his attack on Gloucester, his passion for the Great British Bake Off, his current jelly-like state of being, and anything else people care to ask him.

➥ Hush, Hush

(cw: spiders, swarms, webs, massive creatures, blood, body horror, mention of skin-based horror, loss of control, cosmic horror)

Those who rode on Gus the Bus will notice that they've begun to have strange nightmares of late. Even those who should not be able to dream. It's not every night. In fact, it doesn't even seem to happen consistently. Not every dream is precisely the same, either, but there's a definite… theme.

Something too massive to fully see or comprehend looms over and all around you as you find yourself waking in a cobweb-infested forest. Dogtown? Possibly. It seems like the right species of trees. You're left to wander for a bit- there's always this moment of calm where you can take in your surroundings. The sky is a pitch black and looks… close. It's not the night sky, really. It feels more like it's a thing above you. There is some manner of ambient light, though, because you can see.

The wandering cannot last, though, and something speaks, the sound vibrating through you to your teeth. What it says you cannot know. You're not even sure there are words so much as impressions. Things that move beyond the veil of this world, that press in at its edges but cannot tear through. Not yet. But whatever veil is there is thin and thinning more in one particular spot. The sharp tang and smell of blood fills your mouth and nose as you bleed for the 'listening.' A long, enormous leg, big enough to impale you and hundreds of others reaches down through the trees and gently caresses your hair.

It's after this that the dream changes. Once, perhaps, you'll find that the forest disgorges thousands of tiny spiders that swarm toward you, fit themselves into your mouth, your nose, your ears, any place they can find an inroad. You are being filled up with spiders. Another time, you find your body already writhing with something. Looking down, you'll find there are spiders squirming out from the sack of your skin, hollowing you out as all that was you simply skitters away. Yet another time, you might find that your limbs have been wrapped in strings and you'll be puppeted about.

And when you wake from these nightmares, it is not always in your bed. Instead, you might find that you've already started breakfast, you're already taking a shower, or you might even have fully dressed and seen yourself off to work. You can remember nothing about what came before waking, but for those who might encounter sleepers, they'll see someone going about a self-care morning routine, whatever that might mean for you.

It's helpful! Don't worry about something else taking control for a little while. You probably didn't do anything sinister. Right?

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play background 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 for your specific scene. Also, please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
  
  
• EXHIBITING ODD BEHAVIORS (16-20 March) - Characters may sit with whoever they’d like for the trip to Buffalo and back, roommates for the hotel can either be chosen or randomized, as you prefer and while a museum buddy isn’t required (you’re mostly adults here) it is encouraged. Players are more than welcome to come up with whatever technology, light, or art-based exhibits they like as long as it fits the general theme of an altered reality, most of the displays are perfectly harmless, if a strain to the mind.
  
  For the ‘lively’ displays, the iron stick men can be caught and returned to the display, they will make a game of escaping and stay when returned for a little while, at least. (And they make rusty iron hinge sounds when caught!) All of the displays are marked with the traditional ‘do not touch’ warning, but anyone who ignores that advice for the body part portraits will find they feel…alarmingly realistic. Plus, the mouth will, in fact, bite and chew anything it is fed.
  
  Please note that while the Buffalo Museum of Science is a real museum and players are welcome to draw on information available online to supplement their understanding of its layout and exhibits, the version of the museum presented here is fictionalized, much like our setting of Gloucester and the surrounding region in general.
  
  
• A PUZZLING EVOLUTION (20 March) - Only characters who followed the game path all the way to a weasel or crab outcome will be affected by the display. Players are welcome to visit whatever grotesque changes they would like upon their characters provided that they follow the theme of weasels or crabs. Your character might even be the unlucky one who tried for all of the possible endings in that game and winds up as a weasel-crab hybrid. The transformations should be uncomfortable in some way for characters, and may be excruciatingly painful at player discretion. They cannot result in any advantages to characters that would be impossible to replicate without a patron Entity. E.g., 'Armored' skin is fine, but it's not going to stop bullets. Gills are fine, but they will not allow characters to sustain themselves underwater for longer than what could be achieved by a human in peak physical condition.
  
  The glamour effect on everyone will waver throughout this ordeal, so nonhuman characters and those undergoing transformation will be intermittently, VISIBLY nonhuman. Please assume that NPCs will act accordingly. Either double-taking if the nonhuman characteristics are visible for only a moment or running scared for a security officer if the changes last. Characters CAN be arrested. ADI will work to get them released, but they may lose valuable time if this happens. Changes can also be limited to wholly mental effects. The changes that occur can either be permanent or something that vanishes once all of the displays are destroyed. Characters who attempt a more technologically-based approach to looking into the code of the computers or trying to hack it will find nothing apparently supernatural. This is something that science cannot explain, oddly enough.
  
  
• FOR ALL YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS (16-31 March) - It seems the network admins have their hands full, as the private post will fly under the radar…unless, of course, someone chooses to inform them. As a reminder, Pyre was spared from death by player vote in December 2022 and hidden at Bonnie's Flophouse. After a few weeks Pyre's attention span will peter out and he'll lose interest in the post. In the meantime, however, he will do his best to answer any and all questions, but will be unwilling to show what remains of his face in person or in photographs.
  
  
• HUSH, HUSH (16 March - Ongoing) - Only characters with the spiderweb tattoos from Gus will experience the nightmares. These can happen as frequently or as infrequently as players would like. There are no patterns to be found either in individuals or a group as to when they occur, only that they are occurring as a result of the encounter with Gus. Those who witness sleepers while they're dreaming will likely not be able to tell that the people are asleep. They don't speak, but their eyes are open and they seem to respond in some way that would be expected. If you would like your character to have got up to mischief while they're sleepwalking, that is more than welcome. Generally, the spider dreams will lead to a simple self-care morning, but they might occasionally lead to characters committing small acts of vandalism and terror that they will have no memory of.
  
  

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(frozen comment) QUESTIONS

[apocalypsehowmods]

Please respond here with any questions.

For All Your Burning Questions: NPC Interactions with Pyre

[apocalypsehownpcs]

Please respond to this comment for network threads with Pyre!

Voice; un: Pegasus

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

Hey, first time caller here.

Little curious about the jelly thing—like, did they mean to do that to you specifically? Like did they just come up with the idea that it would be the scariest monster or something? Or was it an accident?

the most important question Pyre's gonna get, un: hickey

[friendsfordinner]

Right I've been bored here and watched enough Bake Off to know the questions that really matter.
What's your thought on the baked Alaska mess? Honestly, the producers should have picked something different as the challenge considering how bloody hot it was. And also weren't a few of the freezers broken? Everyone was screwed from the start.

also what the fuck about that petroleum jelly bit?

un: punchgirl

[lesbeau]

oh. hey. sorry i kicked your dad in the dick. and your fake dad in the head. but in my defense they both tried to kill me and a lot of other people.

did you know what your dad was doing? or was that whole thing just a surprise.

un: badgirlcoven

[edalyn]

[Okay, he's actually kind of endearing so far. She's got questions about being an avatar, but maybe she won't start there.]

Hey, kid. Glad you're still around

We haven't met but I voted against murder for what it's worth

I know it's rough when the people you grow up trusting turn out to be trying to cause an apocalypse. Happens more often than u might think

Why don't you come hang out with the rest of us sometime?

You're not the only weird person here I for one am a large bird and if anyone's too mean about your face or whatever you can send them my way

Text; un: bright

[abrightboy]

I had been hoping to talk to you. I come around there sometimes to see if you’re up to it. I’m sorry for your losses. My dad’s done horrible things too. That’s a hard shadow to get out from under. How are you feeling?

Cornelius Hickey | The Terror | ota!

[friendsfordinner]

exhibiting odd behaviors - the hotel
Even as a grownass adult, Hickey is still treating the hotel like a small child would. To be fair, this is...what, his second or third time staying in a modern place like this? And some of the amenities never get old. In the mornings you can find him going absolutely buckwild on that continental breakfast. In the evenings, you can find him lounging by the pool, letting his feet rest in the water while he looks up at the sky and just relaxes.

exhibiting odd behaviors - the museum
But eventually, they need to get to work. The museum itself is...odd. Hickey doesn't really know what to think about most of it and is happy to write a lot of things off as 'stupid Entity bullshit.' Even some of the things that aren't 'stupid Entity bullshit' are written off as that. $5 for a bottle of water? That'd be...what, Desolation? The mindless destruction of his wallet, more like. This entire thing is remarkably out of his comfort zone.

Until it isn't. The moment he spots that one of those iron men is missing, Hickey takes to the search with an intense determination. He's not running, but his focus is so intense and his movements so deliberate that he looks like he's tracking something. He's on the Hunt. And, at least for the moment, the Hunt will have to accept weird small iron stick men things.

He's so focused on his prey that Hickey's a bit oblivious to the people around him—he absolutely body-checks someone, knocking into them, before stepping around and continuing the pursuit.

a puzzling evolution - ota!
"You know this is all bullshit, right?"

So says the man who arrived in the game before On the Origin of the Species was published and, let's be real here, never had anything in the way of higher education to begin with. Hickey's standing in front of the display, frown on his face as he looks at the game screen. He got weasel. Again.

"I mean, evolution? The idea that everything came from fish or what have you? Bloody ridiculous. And anyway, why's it keep ending up at weasel? People have thumbs. That automatically puts us above those rats."

Hickey's keeping calm and giving the display his normal level of sass, but that doesn't do much to hide the fact that something's off with him. His mustache is more bristly than normal, sticking out in angles close to whiskers than actual hair. And don't ask him about his souvenir Buffalo Museum of Science baseball hat that he totally didn't arrive here with and also totally isn't taking off.

hotel!!

[ruevealing]

"This has to be the most quiet I've ever seen you."

Rue's shadow casts over him briefly - far longer than their glamoured form suggests - before they settle a meter or so away from the man at the side of the pool, carefully dipping a dainty pair of feet into the water.

"Did the travel treat you well, Mr. Hickey?"

Lt. Col. John Sheppard | Stargate: Atlantis | OTA

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

cw: Body Horror: the Post, blood, violence, spiders, spider swarms, loss of control/autonomy, cocoons, full encasement, webs, cosmic horror, skin-based horror, webs, disassociation, PTSD, allusions to cannibalism and induced madness

A. Bus Ride

“I’ve always enjoyed going on field trips,” John says casually to the person across the aisle from him, or maybe to the person directly in front of him, or behind.

There’s a crackly, crunchy sound as he, yes, has brought a bag of popcorn as a snack.

“It’s nice to get away from Gloucester once in awhile.”

And Dogtown, and spider busses. This trip’ll probably be fun?

B. A Puzzling Evolution Part 1:

John is a little competitive when it comes to games. He might be playing this particular game one too many times.

Which he will come to regret later.

If he sees you looking at his result, or if he’s walking by and sees your result, he’ll make the comment, “I swear there’s really only two choices for this thing. I guess they’re trying to make a point…”

A Puzzling Evolution Part 2:

The glamour is starting to fail.

It’s unfortunate that John’s experienced this a number of times already in his life. The odd sensation of something like an exoskeleton or hard carapace starting out as a spot on his arm.

Luckily this time, it’s not blue, but a more mottled, reddish brown.

Still, it’s close enough to what it looked like when he turned into a bug that one time that it takes him several seconds not to completely freak out. It could be nothing. It could be some Avatar-related nonsense but he was already quite familiar with his powers and they were consistent and cat-like, and not…this.

The glamour winks on and off but with every time it breaks the carapace-thing gets worse. The sensation of it crawling up his arm without seeing it at first is troubling enough. Skin-hardening, muscles changing into…something else. Then his fingers seem stuck together and the next time it winks off he realizes what’s happened.

“That’s not good.”

They’re not quite fingers anymore. And swiftly melding into sharp points, and becoming larger by the second. Spikes stick out here and there, ripping through his jacket. That would be panic-inducing enough, were it not for something in his back suddenly feeling like it was being squeezed and stretched.

With the glamour on, you simply might see John suddenly flop on the ground with a yell, hitting his back against the wall several times over.

With the glamour off, you will see a man who’s suddenly longer than he should be, his back stretching out and pulling him apart like taffy, with what looks like a crab claw hitting the floor.

A Puzzling Evolution Part 3:

It, as it always does, gets worse.

This time, instincts kicked in and they were not entirely different from the instincts already present in him from his powers. The weasel was a predator, albeit a very cute one, and only too happily agreed with the premise that maybe they should go hunting after all?

When the glamour cuts off, he looks like a monster—a weasel-like creature, covered in brown fur, with a long, thick tail, except with some patches of carapace on its back, and extra antennae sticking out of its head and snout, along with two crab claws.

Thing is, he’d probably be a more effective hunter if he wasn’t about three feet tall and shrinking. The best he can do is snap at people’s heels.

Probably should work on getting out of this situation before it’s too late…

A Puzzling Evolution: Part 4

It didn’t go away.

Most of the changes reversed themselves just fine. It was a little difficult to tell under the glamour but there was something wrong with his left arm, his fingers wouldn’t work properly and it felt…heavy.

When they got back to ADI it was evident that this was gonna be a problem.

You might find John getting off the bus and looking dejectedly at his left arm which has pointedly refused to look like anything less than a giant crab claw.

“Well, that’s just great!”

C. Hush, Hush

The dreams are strange.

They start out pleasant enough, until he realizes he’s in Dogtown again and there’s something cosmic and unknowable happening. For a moment he’s terrified the Stars are back—until there’s a kind, but giant leg that caresses his hair.

The blood’s probably fine.

The dream changes, and it’s always horrible. There’s one where he’s trapped against a tree and he can’t move, and the spiders come and fill him up, he can’t move and he can’t stop them and they swarm him, surging into his mouth, his ears, and he can feel them inside, swarming around, so full he might explode. He can move around now but he falls to the ground, spiders jostling about inside, coughing, spiders falling out as he does so.

He almost wants to laugh but he can’t stop screaming.

What will they say when he goes back to ADI? Kate would say I told you so, really…but maybe it’s simply inevitable. Maybe this was the only outcome. The spiders seem happy and maybe he should be happy about it, too.

There’s another one where he’s trapped in a web. But the spiders pour out of him this time—hey, he thought they had a nice home here?—and he feels hollowed out. Everything that makes him up disappears…and he’s nothing but a hollowed husk, stuck on a giant web. Suddenly he’s dropping to the ground, loosened by the wind, and it blows his husk away.

Maybe it’s what he deserves.

There’s another where he’s the spider—he shouldn’t even be surprised about it at this point. Maybe the spiders in him made him one of them—because giant legs sprout out of his back and he’s realizing he’s wrapped up someone he knows in his web…over and over again until they’re all nice and cocooned up.

Their fear is delicious.

John wakes up in the usual fashion—not in a cold sweat or horrified screaming but over a plate of freshly scrambled eggs and sausage, or in a freshly cleaned room, or reading a book outside in the sun.

(He does have a crab-arm now so sometimes the scrambled eggs are a bit messy but it really made cracking eggs simpler…?)

It takes him a second to come to, but the confusion is evident on his face that he’s suddenly awake even if he’s been talking to your character the last few minutes.

Especially if you were the one he wrapped up in a cocoon in his dream.

“Oh. Uh. How did I get here?”

D. Wildcard - Anything goes! Will match format! Plotting post here

A

[bossyboiler]

Kate is seated in front of him. She turns around, standing up so she can address him better, and offers a polite smile. Guess who, John, guess who.

"The morning air on a field trip always did used to hit different."

delloso de la rue | d20 | ota

[ruevealing]

i. [exhibiting odd behaviors - hotel] the last few months, i've been workin' on me, baby

[Traveling along with their husband-to-be makes the trip all the more pleasurable, even when the pair have to remain trapped beneath their ADI-mandated glamours the entire time. But that won't stop Rue from enjoying what little time they get to themself before the real work begins.

They can be found in the little gift shop next to the hotel, flicking through a slew of punny tourist tees or by the poolside, lounging to one side in the hot tub, trying to take up as little space as possible.]

ii. [a puzzling evolution] there's so much trauma in my life (cw: body horror)

[It starts with searing hot agony, a rippling and elongating of bone and flesh and muscle, just agonizing enough to leave the disguised owlbear dropping to their knees, shrieking out in sudden, unexpected pain.

What had begun as a productive afternoon in the museum is quickly taking a turn into absolute horror as Rue's human neck stretches beyond recognition, longer and longer until the glamour finally fizzles out, revealing the transforming beast beneath. Their large eyes, always so warm and expressive and kind, are quickly clouded in their anguish, panting through an open beak as their body is rattled by the transformation.

Rue's already non-human body has taken on new weasel-ish characteristics. Their neck, already so elegant and long has been elongated to a terrifying level, their feathery countenance framed in rounded, rat-like ears. And skinny, black whiskers have sprouted from their heart-shaped facial disc and above their terrified, tearful eyes.

They don't even know what's happened but everything feels so terribly wrong.]

I d-don't - Please -

[Their voice comes out trembling in fear, but the panic is already settling in among the few non-ADI humans lingering around the same exhibit, their gaping, terrified expressions stuck on the owlbear caught mid-transformation. Rue stumbles back to their feet, taller than before, wings spreading out wide to help keep their balance as a rush of dizziness hits them.]

iii. [wildcard] i've been so cold to the ones who loved me, baby / i look back now and I realize

[ooc: want a prompt for something completely different? please hit me up!]

ii

[friendsfordinner]

[ Hickey doesn't like Rue. If you asked him to list the top three members of ADI he doesn't get along with, Rue would be on that list. But you don't have to like somebody in order to respect something about them. Hickey respects the power behind the owlbear form. He wants that for himself. And he respects that Rue knows how to wield it and is unapologetically themselves.

So seeing people scared and terrified of something so wonderful and so impressive absolutely pisses Hickey off. As far as he's concerned? They don't deserve that majesty. He walks past Rue, muttering, ]

There's a restroom behind you. Corridor to your left, I believe.

[ before deciding that the best thing to do is cause a distraction and draw some attention. Walking up to a glass vase that reflects light in a way that glass really isn't supposed to reflect and refract, Hickey pushes it to the ground, where it shatters with a crash loud enough to easily draw attention. ]

Whoops, [ he dryly responds. ] How clumsy of me.

Manji | Blade of the Immortal | OTA

[canofmanji]

Traveling

Manji is doing his best to try and act like how fast the bus is going isn't bothering him at all. His expression is fairly normal as he usually scowls, but perhaps someone might notice how his only arm is gripping the arm rest in a death vice. Or the way he's pushed in into the back of the seat as if he's waiting to crash at any moment. His heart is racing as his one good eye watches as the world seems to fly by them. Knee bouncing rapidly as he keeps trying to act like everything is fine and he's not scared.

He's much better once they arrive and he's assigned his hotel room. He's actually excited to be sharing a room with Hickey. He thinks they'll be a good pair, but he can be found wandering around the hotel.

Exhibiting Odd Behaviors

Although at the Art Exhibit he feels out of his element once again. Everything in here seems like information overload. He stares wide eyed and mouth open at the dinosaurs bones. How could something that massive have been real? He gets distracted for a bit in their artifact displays. It felt strange to see things he would consider “normal” aged and behind glass as something to be studied.

After the first day he tries to focus more on other areas of the museum. Not wanting to get wrapped up in nostalgia of that exhibit he avoids the artifact section after that first day. He finds himself getting confused by many of the exhibits that are designed to play tricks with the lights and surroundings. Often grumbling and swearing as he tries to understand how it works so hopefully there aren't any young kids around him when he does.

At one point Manji can be caught staring at the little stick figure men. Peering at them suspiciously. “I swear there use to be more of them.” Was that the tap of little feet? He turns his head and thinks he spots something. “Did you see that?” Was that a little man fleeing around a corner?

Wildcard

Make your own starter! Or reach out to plot with me through a PM or zigzag123 or Discord: Zig-zag#9946

traveling

[setthetone]

The thing is, once someone is his patient, Carter feels kind of responsible for them. Especially if they had a tendency to, say, randomly bleed out because of old curses. It's a professional thing.

So the way he's sitting and gripping the seat catches his eye. He watches Manji for a while before he slips out of his seats and a few isles back and closer to his.

"Not a fan of driving?"

Luka Kovač | ER | OTA

[cuttypie]

cw: body horror, loss of control, PTSD, violence

A. Museum Gift Shop - Luka has always loved science, but losing his ability to be a Doctor from the sacrifice he made to cut himself off from the Stranger has given him mixed feelings about such things, and he finds himself wandering into the museum gift shop first to work his way up to it. Besides, gift shops are always fun!

You might find him looking at the stuffed animals (lots of weasels and crabs for some reason), or picking up a sample of fool's gold in the geology section, or any number of cheap branded things from keychains to pens to paperweights.

"What is Astronaut Ice Cream? Do astronauts really eat this?"

B. A Puzzling Evolution Part 1:

At least the game is a little fun. He's a little disappointed he got crab instead of anything else, but it seems like everyone else is getting either crab or weasel, so at least it explains the stuffed animals.

It's not too long after that, that he starts feeling a little strange. Exposed, mostly. He's thirsty and everything seems a little too...open. Shadows make him jump, and he's starting to keep back against the walls, slinking around doors, until the feeling becomes unbearable and he has a desperate need to hide.

But where?

There's a trash can nearby and while, being a 6'4" man, is far too large to really and truly fit in it, he tries to climb in it anyway.

A security guard does not find this amusing.

"Sir? Sir, what are you doing!?"

A Puzzling Evolution Part 2:

It's probably unfortunate that he still keeps his human mind for so long, because soon he realizes that he's being compelled, that he's got something affecting him. For a moment he's terrified it's the Stranger again, that he's being affected by it, that he hasn't fully been released from the Entity...except this isn't exactly like what he's experienced.

It starts with the antennae. First he thinks it's just his hair falling in his face, until he realizes that the things are light orange and somehow his sense of smell has gotten far, far stronger in the last few minutes. And they're moving on their own.

You might hear some cursing in Croatian.

He's by one of the displays and rushes to a window, his eyes suddenly just traveling gently upwards, on stalks.

There is a lot more cursing in Croatian.

A Puzzling Evolution Part 3:

He's crawling, skittering, really. He looks like a horrific mashup of man and some sort of crab, about five foot in height and shrinking bit by bit. The instinct to hide is beyond his control now, and he slowly pulls himself towards the trash can he'd exited sometime earlier. More legs seem to be emerging, and some kind of tail-like thing on his back that isn't covered in the segmented carapace that's slowly covering him fully.

Aha--safety! He pulls himself in, tail-first, snuggling happily into the trash can, letting his claws and other legs hang out the front. Now he's comfortable. He still seems to have somewhat of a human-like face besides his stalk-eyes and antennae, save for a couple of maxillipeds along the sides of his face that twitch and move with the thought of food.

Maybe he should find some water? The trash-can creature scuttles about the ground, heading towards a water fountain.

C. Aftermath

You might find Luka back in ADI, in medical, in the canteen, or wandering around the grounds on some sort of errand.

He still has the antennae, sticking out of the sides of his hair, two very long skinny ones and two shorter ones closer to his head. Yeah, he knows that's the first thing you're gonna talk about. If approached, he'll immediately give a scowl and say, "I really don't want to talk about it."

If you call them feelers he will start a fight.

D. Wildcard - Anything goes! Will match format! Plotting post here

C

[setthetone]

"Well, that's too bad."

If Luka thinks the scowl will deter Carter, he'll have to think again.

After the big proclamations and promises that he was human again, that he had pried himself loose from the Stranger, the permanent change really doesn't sit well with Carter. True, he had been affected by the same thing - along with pretty much everyone else - but he wasn't the one who turned Avatar before, so clearly he's not at risk like Luka was.

"Because we're gonna talk about it."

Rodney McKay | Stargate: Atlantis | ota

[energyfieldgood]

i. bus ride

[This is hell.

The jumpers back home could get crowded sometimes when they had to bring an additional military team, but this? Nine hours of this? It's probably feeding an Entity itself because some cosmic horror has to be feasting off this misery.

So Rodney waltzes straight to the row in the back to sit there, jacket on the left, bags with tech equipment on the right, him perched in the middle and taking up the seats with the unabashed assholeness of that kid on the high school field trip.

Sorry, this space is occupied by important ADI technology and him.

Mostly him.]


ii. exhibiting odd behaviors

[He was a pain on the bus. He was a pain in the hotel. He definitely was a pain when they first entered the exhibition, loudly proclaiming what he thinks of most of the exhibition pieces, morphing from that kid on the bus to that guy in the museum.

He's not being a pain now.

Ever since getting a little competitive over the evolution game and playing several rounds, Rodney has mellowed considerably. More than that, he's engaged, sociable, he's being... playful. Trying things out and presses some interactive buttons curiously. They make the displays around him twist and turn and twirl and he cranes his neck, grinning, following along with the activity.]

You know, I take it back. This isn't so bad? Ohh, what's that? I think you need two people for that! Come on, let's check it out!

[He might actually reach out to physically pull you along.

Someone's in a good mood?]


iii. even more odd behaviors (cw: body horror, mention of teeth loss)

[He's not being a pain anymore. But he's in pain.

After the mental changes, the physical ones set in and it shows.

He's scruffy, which is an unusual look for him and an even more unusual feel for him. He shaves every day and he's never been very succesful in growing a beard and he keeps scratching at it, bewildered. It's been decades since he's had so much hair and it would be potentially great if it sprouted in the right places and not all over his body.

There's also the pawpads with the claws. They hurt with the agonizing pain of skin and bone morphing. So do the fangs in his mouth and only the growing instincts keep him from absolutely freaking out over losing his teeth earlier.

He's pacing next to his fellow ADI companion, gesturing, trying to focus, trying to figure out a way out of this in the middle of the chaos. Is he... smaller than before? He feels smaller. All of his bones ache.]

Okay, think, think, it's gotta... something around here must be... the displays? There was this game, it was about evolution and you'd end up a crab or a weasel! That's gotta be-- do you remember where it, I, I think it was that way--

[He tries to set out in that direction, except he gets distracted - either by some poor visitor's food or some colorful display - and will happily launch himself at either.]


iv. hush hush (cw: spiders, swarms, webs, body horror, skin-based horror)

[Okay but hear him out, what if he just never sleeps again?

Because if has one more dream like that, he's going to lose it.

The sleepwalking is a little disconcerting but hey, at least he doesn't remember it unlike those spider dreams that have him filled with spiders or being eaten alive by spiders or being hollowed out by spiders or oh, look at that, more spiders.

So here he is at odd hours in the cafeteria, inhaling way too much coffee, a large pot in front of him. At this point he's too tired to be cranky even, so if he spots someone he knows he just waves a tired mug at them if they want to help themselves to some. Come be miserable with him.]


v. wildcard

[hit me up! c:]

iii

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[Things are getting worse by the second. They're both getting worse by the second and it's getting harder and harder to concentrate, to think. There are three sets of instincts warring in his head and only the practice that he's had resisting them keeps him fairly clear-headed--at the moment, but he knows that can change at any second.

Right now he's got one giant crab arm and even though he's about the same height, he's actually shrunk, he's only just been...well, lengthened. There's brown patchy fur where his stomach is showing because his jacket and pants are quite far from each other now, and it's kind of hard to walk on two legs, so he holds himself up with the crab claw and is balanced by his weasel tail.]

That's it! I think it's over--Rodney! Get back here!

John Carter | ER | ota

[setthetone]

i. museum

[So, Carter is no art expert but he's been dragged to enough fundraising events that he's got a pretty good grasp on it. And this... just feels off. Which might be the point? Provoking, being funny, being weird on purpose? He's seen some wild stuff at the galleries. Still.]

You're seeing this, right?

[He gestures at the portraits. The mouth in particular and the sign next to it. And also the people just walking by with interested smiles on their faces as if they're looking at a nice still life. Except the still life isn't apples and cups, it's just. Body parts. And it's just weird, come on.]

The... [how to even] The mouth?


ii. crab mentality

[So maybe some suffer from the instincts and try to scuttle away and hide.

Carter, on the other hand, is getting a little aggressive when the crab change hits. And territorial. Did you find a hiding spot? He might try to grab you and push you out and back into the mass of panicking people, claiming it for himself.

Sorry, he's not the nice doctor today.

Most of the aggressiveness is of course fear and when he comes across another crab changed character - or worse, a weasel type character that might feel like a threat - he tries to stand up straighter, aggressively waving a pincer. You wanna go? You wanna go?!]


iii. bus trip back

[So that happened.

All of that... happened. And now they have to drive back for nine hours in this cramped space and deal with the fact that that happened.

It reminds Carter of the doctor's lounge after a difficult day when tension ran so high that everybody just yelled things they later regretted and then had to share a space in the aftermath. It's awkward but he's also kind of... used to it, so eventually he moves through the rows to talk to people.]

Are you okay? ... All things considered.


iv. wildcard

[for everything that might come up in plotting/hit me up!]

ii

[cuttypie]

[Luka was content on hiding and staying to himself. Right now he's not devolved into a trashcrab yet but has the antennae, stalk-eyes and crab claws, along with a couple extra crab legs along for the ride. Probably best to stay in a small, quiet place. Maybe he could find a nice place to crawl into...

But no, another crab had to come around and get all up in his space! Well, this is his space, sir, and that aggressively waving pincer looks a lot like a threat display.

So he gets an aggressive wave of a claw in return.]

Carter!? What's your problem!?

Tim Drake • DC Comics • ota with one closed prompt

[ployboy]

0. Bus (potential 3 way threads) cw sexual innuendo and suggestive content throughout I'm not sorry

[To no one's surprise, Tim takes the seat next to Jeff Calhoun when the bus boards. Seeing as it's a long drive, it's the early start to the day that has him peevish to begin with. He's brought a light but cozy looking throw blanket with him, easy to drape over Jeff and himself.

Apologies to the poor souls seated around the idiot couple. The morning hours will hear Tim hissing empty threats.

(No, this is my side. That's your side.

I don't care if the bus is moving, I will throw you out the window.)

And later when the black haired boy burrows under the blanket with his bodyweight mostly all on Jeff-- well, there might be some obnoxious noises. And suspicious bits of movement. And I can't do it here, you're too hard. (Elbows. Jeff's elbows are too hard. All Tim wants is a nap. He swears.)]

i. Museum cw on individual threads as they come up

[It's a straightforward mission and one Tim had seen coming. Anyone from ADI who seems to be lacking a partner will soon find themselves with Tim asking for a quick assist with checking out one wing of the museum or another. Some are total dead ends, simply permanent exhibits or nothing of supernatural interest.

Any loners playing that game on evolution might have a Tim-sized spectator just behind them as he works his way through a stale sandwich during his lunch break. The rules don't allow food in the wings hosting the expensive art pieces.

In the later days, Tim will brave a comment to anybody he sees invested in the chat on their ADI issued phone. He doesn't mean to obviously snoop, but it's sometimes inevitable when working in close-ish quarters.] Is this what you wanted for Pyre?

Closed to Thancred cw blood, panic, amputation, gore-ish

[Second to last day of investigations in Buffalo and Tim has heard some strange things about an installation he's visited before. Wanting a better look, he's scouting for a fresh pair of eyes to accompany him- a man who he hasn't spared even a second glance at before. Dude looks put-together enough, and it's a low bar for the buddy system Tim has in place. With Thancred alone for a minute, Tim strolls up with his sales pitch.] Hey, is there any Life Size display that you haven't checked out yet?

closed - Tim and Thancred

[breakguns]

Settling into the ADI had been easier than some might have expected, but for Thancred it was pretty standard fare. Investigating problems and stopping calamities was what he'd spent his whole life doing. This was more of the same, if rather more odd. He'd been sticking close to Urianger out of habit - just habit and not a desperate need to keep the other man safe - but then the elezen had gotten distracted by something and wandered off and there was someone talking to him before he could do anything about that so he would just have to hope his friend stayed safe.

The boy - because he was rather young - was old enough but younger than Thancred strictly liked. It wasn't a fair assessment necessarily, considering how young he'd been when he first started throwing himself into dangerous situations, but Thancred was older now and all he could see when he looked at younger people these days was Ryne. Still, it was his own choice to be here, so all he could really do was look out for him. An easy enough task since the boy seemed to be seeking out someone to investigate the situation.

"Honestly, I haven't seen too much of it," he said. "If you wanted to take a look, I can come along. Urianger has...wandered off, so I find myself at something of a loss of what to check out next."

Neal Caffrey || White Collar

[conning]

➥ Exhibiting Odd Behaviors - I BUS RIIIIDE
Neal sits with Malcolm, of course, but it's NINE HOURS, and that's a LONG-ASS TIME to sit still. By hour three he's up and restlessly visiting people he knows and striking up conversations with those he doesn't--"First time out of Gloucester?" or "I don't think we've formally met" or "Couldn't have a nicer day to be crammed into a rental bus driving to the middle of nowhere" are all fairly standard openers, the tone of the latter becoming more exasperated as the day wears on.

Thank god for fuckin rest stops. He's got a particular eye out to see what the non-natives think of the weird little highway food courts and convenience shoppes.

➥ Exhibiting Odd Behaviors - II
It's a museum, and Neal loves museums. The first couple of days he stays fairly close to Malcolm, who can be expected in any of those threads. He's absolutely fascinated by the art on a purely aesthetic level, to the degree that he forgets they're there to like, make sure it doesn't do anything suspicious.

Two rounds of catching the little iron sculpture men and one of getting a pen exploded all over his fingers after he half-feeds it to the picture mouth cure him of that.

➥ A Puzzling Evolution - I (closed to Malcolm)
Neal focuses a little too intently on getting some kind of result in that stupid game after several failures. He's seen other people get crab or weasel, and while he'd like something better, he's grudgingly satisfied to get the latter. It's how he spends the first twenty-some minutes of the day at the museum, losing track of Malcolm who's gone off with someone to look at another exhibit after they came inside.

He gives his fiancé a sheepish look when he finally makes it to their rendezvous in one of the normal-seeming areas of the museum. He hadn't meant to get so fixated.

It’s some time after that - not long at all - that Neal starts to feel wrong. Like his bones are sliding underneath skin and muscle tissue, moving when they aren’t meant to move. It hurts. It’s a full-bodied ache that makes him feel nauseated and makes his head pound.

He touches Malcolm’s sleeve lightly to get his attention. “Can we go to a bathroom?”

Which is when he realizes, startled blue eyes now flecked brown and getting rapidly browner, they’re looking each other square in the face. Neal glances down to make sure Malcolm isn’t standing on an unseen step, then looks back up. “Something’s wrong.”

He does everything in his power to sound calm.

➥ A Puzzling Evolution - II (OTA)
Neal can't decide if he's relieved or more horrified still when his body--fully weasely, a deep brown with a cream-colored throat--starts to shrink from five feet to something smaller. He's still got his mind and his voice, which is--good?

Is it good? Is it good? Is it good to know who he is, what he really is, while this is happening? While there's a looming terror of losing his voice and his intellect and his whole body moves unnaturally and agonizingly around the mind caught in it? He's trying to focus on helping fix it, but the panic is getting harder to fight, and the more he panics, the harder it is to think in general. The panic of the people around him every time the glamour slips isn't helping either.

Which is how he ends up, four feet tall and shrinking, tucked in a corner of the Bug Works permanent exhibit, focus on a video display of moving insects that's making his mouth water.

Weasel TV.

➥ A Puzzling Evolution - III (OTA)
He's ended up about 16 inches long.

There's an inappropriate joke in there somewhere.

Anyway, here he is, tiny and mustelid, not protected by the ADI's glamour as normal as he appears. A silver engagement ring either shoved up on his arm or carried in his mouth at all times. He was with Malcolm, who's been doing his level best to keep tabs on Neal, but the panic keeps driving him into prey-animal-escape-mode.

He can still talk, his voice barely recognizable from tiny vocal cords, but he can still talk. It's getting harder though. It's getting harder, which means he's seeking out every vaguely familiar face he can to keep himself saying words. Congratulations: you may or may not know Neal Caffrey, but you now have a small European pine marten tugging at your pants or shoe, whichever is more reachable, squeaking at you in high-pitched American English.

➥ A Puzzling Evolution/Homeward Bound - IV (OTA)
They have to leave, quickly. They have to get back to the hotel and pack, just as quickly.

Neal is not very quickly shifting back from being a weasel.

By the time they're headed out of town, he's still only three feet long and having trouble with words of more than two syllables. But he has his mind back. He can think, thank whatever is out there to thank.

There's a part of him that says he could get himself back entirely if he just asked the Lonely for help. It nibbles away at the edges of the fear that he won't change back completely.

Not yet though. Not yet.

Right now there's a three foot long pine marten with a little necklace securing his engagement ring curled into a ball on one of the bus seats next to his neurotically concerned partner.

...He may or may not have gone after John Sheppard's crab arm a couple of times before giving up to sulk in anxiety.

➥ wildcard
Feel free to hit Neal up with anything else that takes your fancy, pre-trip or during, including anything you think of that might take place before or after one of the above prompts.

A Puzzling Evolution/Homeward Bound - IV

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

John Sheppard and his crab arm are not happy.

He’s still somewhat weasely enough that he’s not back to his full height, still covered in fur and with a snout and pointy teeth. And bits of crab carapace here and there. And antennae that seem to move independently.

In retaliation, one of said antennae creeps over the aisle and tries to poke Neal.

Methos | Highlander | OTA, except the last prompt

[easilyamused]

I. Fun and Games
Methos finds the evolution game early in the trip. Perhaps if this weren't the case, things might end up differently. He finds the game early in the trip, and computers are still interesting enough that it hooks him. It takes him a few rounds to get to a viable end path, and it's amusing enough to try again to see if he can get a different outcome.

He doesn't. The photo of the weasel's still cute the second time. By the third run through, it's annoying.

There are plenty of other things to look at, and so he wanders off from the terminal, putting it - for the moment - out of his mind.

II. Exhibiting Odd Behaviors
The art installations are interesting enough, but don't, at first, strike Methos as anything truly uncanny. Creative optical illusions, perhaps, but hardly supernatural. He spends a little time inspecting the "melting" sign, stepping in and out of the dome that turns his skin parchment pale, but it isn't until he approaches the portraits that things actually start to get weird.

It's the heart that makes him twitch, and he spends a good half an hour inspecting the canvas and the room around it for signs of decay, or of the bloodstains that might indicate said decay has been successfully staved off. The eye is eerie, but not entirely unfamiliar - how many portraits seem to watch the viewer, after all.

The hand is more disconcerting, and he might bump against another observer as he pulls away from the phantom touch. It raises the hair on the back of his neck, and leaves him feeling faintly itchy.

The mouth, though... He should know better by now. He really should. But something about that sign makes him inclined to disobey, and once he's certain there's no museum staff within line of sight, he pulls a pen from his pocket, and puts it to the mouth's painted lips. It snaps in half at the force of the first bite, and he manages - just - to jerk his hand back from the second without it catching more than a fingertip. He holds his hand tight against his coat, fingers curled, and eyes the thing warily, like it might lunge out of the frame at any moment.

"Well," he says after a few seconds of silent staring. "That's friendly."

III. A Puzzling Evolution
a) cw: tooth loss, transformation, body horror, mention of insect infestation
The itching continues intermittently for an hour or so after the contact with the hand, creeping across his body like small crawling, biting things, until he begins to wonder if he's picked up an incredibly ill-timed case of bedbugs. Small wonder, given the class of motel ADI seems willing to spring for. It's a relief when it subsides, though the spots of blood on the inside of his shirt where he'd scratched hard enough to break skin will be annoying to deal with. He'll need to come up with an explanation, just in case.

It isn't until he's halfway through a snack at the Elements Cafe that Methos realizes something is definitely wrong. There's a sharp crunch that he thinks for a moment is an unusually hard popcorn kernel. It scrapes across his tongue as he surreptitiously spits it out in his hand, and he's not entirely certain whether it's the shape of the thing or the taste of blood in his mouth that he notices first. It takes him a moment to actually comprehend what he's looking at - a human molar, roots and all, cracked down the middle.

The glamour chooses that moment to flicker, and he jolts upright, knocking the chair over with a sharp clatter as he stares at the black-furred, thick-nailed hand holding the bloodied tooth.

By the time anyone else manages to get a good look, he's back to normal - except the tooth is still there, still bloodied, and he slices his tongue as he probes at what's filled the space where it should be.

b) transformation, body horror, mention of tooth loss, erosion of mental faculties
It gets worse. The rest of the teeth go, replaced by the sharper dentition of a carnivore. But the changes are coming faster now, punctuated by sharp cracks and fierce cramping as his musculature and skeletal structure rearranges itself piece by piece. It shouldn't be possible. He should be healing, regaining his normal shape as quickly as it's warped and twisted, but either his immortality has been weakened to the point that it can't overcome the rapidity of the changes, or worse - his body doesn't recognize the transformations as damage.

It's pure animal panic that sends him back to one of the terminals. It's the only thing that could have caused this. Clearly, winning the game will reverse it.

But there's no winning. There's no solution he can find that isn't extinction, or weasel.

A sudden, searing pain, like his skull is splitting in half, sends him staggering against the display. It's not sturdy enough to catch the weight of a full-grown man, and it tips, crashing to the floor hard enough to crack the screen.

Except the creature that crashes to the floor along with the display isn't a man, not really. There's another flicker, and the illusion of humanity falls away, showing black and brown fur, a too-long neck, clawed hands, and a face that twists, bones cracking, flesh almost seeming to writhe as it arranges itself into the furry, masked snout of some kind of giant mustelid.

c) transformation, body horror, loss of personality, loss of memory, loss of sapience - closed to Kate
The right choice, the smart choice, would be to get help.

He doesn't get help. The animal drive is to go to ground, escape from far too many larger, noisier predators, find a dark, quiet den. And the animal is, now, stronger by far than the man.

There are always closed exhibits in a museum, rooms in the middle of being set up and torn down. Methos knows this when he makes his retreat. He doesn't know this by the time, only minutes later, he finds a suitably close corner, between two boxes, curling up and arranging his now far-too-large coat like a nest. The sound of shifting bone and the grinding pain is a constant now - arms and legs shrinking, ribcage compressing, skull squeezing in, height dropping by inches in staggered, agonizing waves.

It feels like dying, and that thought sends him scrabbling for his pocket, but his hands are more paw now than anything else, and he manages nothing more than to tear the lining of his coat.

III. A Puzzling Evolution - b

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

John hears the crash, and comes scurrying around the corner, just in time to see a man--or what was a man, flickering with the remnants of a broken ADI glamour, suffering from the changes that seemed to be affecting so many.

And that crash is bound to get someone's attention, probably security.

"Hey!"

John hasn't escaped unscathed from the game, either. His condition isn't as progressed at this point--the worst thing on him is one arm has been completely overcome by carapace, his hand ending in a large crab claw. His entire body has been stretched, his proportions more weasel-like than not, and fur is creeping up his neck and onto his face.

"Hey, are you okay? We gotta get you outta here--"

He's not sure who this is, ADI or not, but the last thing any of them need is to be captured.

Raine Whispers | The Owl House |OTA

[rainestorms]

1: EXHIBITING ODD BEHAVIORS:
Raine was finding it a little hard to adjust to their newfound home—So, when Eda had asked Raine to come on a trip with her (or a little adventure, as she’d described it), they’d decidedly said yes. It was to a museum, and Raine had considered that quite a good opportunity to learn more about where they were, at the least. The bus itself, though, had been intimidating at first. It was big, and loud, and unlike most of the big, scary, and loud things they had back on the Boiling Isles. Eda had done her best to reassure them that it wouldn't in fact eat them if they didn't play their cards right, and once Raine was actually on the bus it was quite comfortable, if not a bit crowded full of strangers for their taste.

One of the most perplexing places they’d visited along the way, however, was one of the various stations they’d stopped at. Some of them had little markets inside of them, selling whatever human snacks, or drinks, or.. other substances. One that had transfixed them was the refrigerators. Raine’s eyes remained glued on the shiny, colorful array of different cans and bottles of drinks inside. It's not that witches didn't have drinks similar to some of what was in there, but not anything like here. Each thing was bright, and loud, and there were more choices than, to Raine, any one person could possibly want.

The problem with this indecisive dilemma lay within the fact that Raine was thirsty now. Eda had encouraged them to try something new. Raine turned away from the fridge, and expecting her to still be next to them, states:

“Eda, we’re going to get left behind if I can’t make a decision, which one do you—“ They jumped, realizing the person standing next to them was a person from the bus, instead of Eda.

“Oh! Sorry. I didn't realize you weren't.. Eda…” They apologize, and glance around for Eda. She must've wandered off.

2: A PUZZLING EVOLUTION:
Raine had an unsurprisingly fun day with Eda running through the museum together. They would stay together for what they both wanted to see, and split up if one wanted to spend more time while the other wanted to move along. This was one of those times, but Raine didn't mind.

Eda had decided she'd wanted to try and stare at an eye that seemed to be watching them back in another exhibit. Raine had decidedly felt the eye was not worth their time spent in the museum, and moved on. They’d found a much cuter exhibit, one where they went through the evolution of the strange human world creature known as the weasel. Raine was able to get from the beginning to weasel very quickly and they grew bored. They stepped away from it, and moved to stare at a diagram of things evolving into crabs.

A searing pain tore through their, well… everything, and Raine doubled over against the display. But then seemingly as quickly as it began, it ended. Raine braced themself for a few more seconds before they took out their phone, and texted Eda something about not feeling well, before they put it back, and began to walk to the exit of the exhibit. There were some benches in another area. They'd just take a break, Eda would find them again, and-

The pain returned, stronger this time. To avoid running into any more of the exhibits, or other people, Raine hurriedly ducked into a bathroom. They didn't particularly pay attention to which one it was, or whomever else was in there. Their attention snagged at the mirror, to themself, and they let out a loud, frightened “TITAN!” At their appearance. Through the glamor the ADI forced them to wear it was apparent they'd taken on some of the features of the animal in the exhibit’s game- they had claws, longer ears, and most alarmingly, fur.

Raine rushed into a bathroom stall, and slammed the door. They struggled to pull their phone out of their pocket, and tried to struggle past their claws to text Eda a warning about the display. Forget what Raine had said earlier. They hated museums. Sure, nothing in their experience of past museums could exactly prepare them for what they were experiencing. But they still hated them now.

3: Wildcard!
(OOC: would love to do more Raine meeting new people shenanigans! Plotting post is here! )

2! can't resist bards meeting

[cacophonish]

As a rule, Jeff doesn't go into public bathrooms if he can avoid it.

(...okay, that's not strictly true. Back when he was on the road, in his time away from Gloucester, he'd go into them. Late at night, at lonely rest stops, when there'd just be one other person there. One thing he's learned: truckers are easy pickings for a quick scare and a light snack.)

Anyway. Jeff usually avoids public bathrooms. There are too many mirrors, and ever since his death-slash-rebirth, his reflection doesn't always like to do what it's supposed to. Honestly, it can be a total dick sometimes. Great for creeping people out, but awful for staying under the radar while there's ADI stooges everywhere.

But when he sees Raine duck into the bathroom in a panic, he can't help but follow. Sure, he doesn't know them, but he recognizes them from the bus. And all that pain and confusion is just way too tempting.

He hears that frightened shout (Titan? Whatever the fuck that means) just as he's opening the door, and catches sight of them rushing into a stall. Which, okay, honestly? Great, that means there's nobody who can see his reflection moving just out of sync, smiling up at some imaginary sunshine, as he walks past the mirrors and towards the stalls.

"Heeeey..." Jeff raps on the stall door. "You okay in there?"

Edalyn Clawthorne | The Owl House | OTA

[edalyn]

Exhibiting Odd Behaviors

I. Extremely unofficial tour guide
The first time the bus makes any kind of stop where people can get off to explore–or at least buy snacks–Eda decides it’s her time to shine. Apparently.

“Anyone feeling lost? Confused? Terrified? Well, luckily you’ve got a resident expert on the Human Realm,” Eda announces cheerily, and in what seems to be a mostly sincere tone.

Of course, she’s not a human or a local and the majority of others are one if not both, but she almost certainly has a response prepared if anyone chooses to point this out.

II. Awkward (re)introductions (Open to Eda’s existing CR)
Note: Tag in for 3 person threads with Eda and Raine (rainestorms)

While the two aren’t necessarily inseparable, Eda is spending an awful lot of this trip with the ADI’s newest (re)arrival from her own world, Raine Whispers. A short, middle-aged witch with a somewhat anxious disposition and a palpable sense of unease with being on a bus.

Eda spends most of her time with them chatting contentedly, pointing out this that or the other thing outside the bus windows and giving them explanations of extremely varying credibility.

Once in a while, however, she appears to decide that it’s her job to force her best friend to socialize with her friends and coworkers. If she spots someone she knows getting up to stretch their legs, she’ll wave them over and likely try to get them to sit with the two of them.

III. Browsing the displays (CW: scopophobia, will add anything else per thread)
While Eda might not admit to liking museums—after all, they’re clearly for nerds—she seems to be curious about all the exhibits all the same.

For the most part, she wanders the museum with Raine, but they split up now and then and there are points she can be found poking around the various oddities on her own.

You might find her locked in what appears to be a staring contest with a portrait of an eye, for at least a few solid minutes. Or perhaps you hear the tapping of little, oddly metallic feet and find her following one of the escaped stick figures, seemingly less interested in returning it to its place and more in where it’s going.

Despite the fact there doesn’t seem to be anything supernatural about that particular exhibit, she spends a bit of time looking at dinosaur skeletons with an oddly melancholic expression.

A Puzzling Evolution

I. Sore loser
It isn’t news that Eda has a competitive streak. Sometimes this is useful, and results in things like being the star player of her high-school sports team. Other times this results in focusing on card games to the exclusion of all else.

Today it appears to be resulting in Eda’s increasing frustration—but sheer dedication—to surviving this weird little evolution game as anything other than a weasel.

“Oh come on, what are humans even related to? Cats?”

II. Monstrous transformation (CW: body horror)
For better or worse, Eda’s used to her body drastically changing forms. While it isn’t the most comfortable thing, it’s something that she’s at least used to. Well, usually.

This time, as she feels her bones begin to shift her first assumption is the curse–a sudden wave of panic rising in her as it’s been almost a year since transforming fully, and normally she has warning, especially these days.

She can tell when she’s getting stressed, or overly tired, or overstimulated. She can tell when the owlbeast is upset. She can talk it down. But right now she can feel its confusion almost as strongly as her own. It’s used to being trapped in a body that doesn’t fit, but that body doesn’t normally change in ways it isn’t causing.

Something is… very, very wrong.

This isn’t the curse, and whatever’s happening to her is comparatively slow.

Maybe she should find someone she knows–or maybe she should just get out of the museum. Into some fresh air. She’s not sure if this is a case where staying calm will help or not.

All this to say, Eda is unfortunately near the entrance to the museum and not hidden in any way when she suddenly braces herself against a wall, gritting her teeth and trying to suppress a pained whimper.

This is followed by popping and crunching sounds as her spine lengthens and buckles, as she goes from leaning against the wall to all fours.

At first, anyone watching would have no way to know what was happening. But soon her form begins to flicker. It becomes apparent that her back is bending in a way that shouldn’t really be possible for a human, clothes stretching and starting to rip. Briefly, something that looks like a long tail lashes in distress. Her shadow appears to be of something that has wings.

And then, all at once, the ADI glamour is stretched to its limit. It flickers out and the creature that replaces the apparently-human woman is clearly anything but. Standing on four legs, its back long and hunched, it appears to be more a mix between a weasel and an owl than anything else–but with just enough human left in the mix to make it all the more uncanny.

Its front legs are a mix between clawed hands and paws, while its back legs are birdlike, with huge talons. It sports large, owl-like wings, a long tail, and is covered in fur and shaggy feathers, all in varying shades of grey.

The face bears a little resemblance to Eda’s, especially in the widow’s peak that leads back to a short, fluffy mane of hair. Primarily, though, it’s animalistic, with short, wide, pointed ears, shiny black eyes and perhaps most notably a muzzle full of very sharp teeth.

Let’s hope there only happen to be ADI personnel in the area.

Hush, Hush (nightmares, loss of control, potential spider imagery)
Eda finds herself walking through a forest. She’s not quite certain how she got there, or where there is. But it’s a nice evening, and Eda’s reaction to this type of environment is more of familiarity than concern; generally things in the woods ought to be more afraid of her than she needs to be of them.

It’s only when she stops walking that the wrongness really strikes her. Or rather, when she tries to stop walking. Her body continues to walk, following what seems like a set path through the trees. She can’t seem to turn her head very far, but from the corner of her eye she sees something glimmer.

A line of silk, leading up to… she can’t look up either.

Eda struggles against her puppet strings as realisation sets in.

It doesn’t help.

Despite all of that, Eda’s distress doesn’t show in the waking world, where she appears to be going about her morning. You might spot her loading a plate from the limited selection of breakfast foods provided by the hotel, or perhaps lounging by the pool.

It’s earlier than she usually seems to get up, but aside from that nothing appears to be wrong. She reacts when people talk to her, though they might notice that she doesn’t say anything.

Wildcard
Surprise me or hit me up on discord (Ilya#4143) or badgirlcoven

II. Monstrous transformation

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

John is already in a bad way. But he’s still clear-headed enough that when he sees Eda’s glamor suddenly fail, he stops dead in his tracks.

Bird? No one else got bird—

—there’s a flare of instincts that warn him that the presence of giant wings=danger, and he needs to run and hide, but the shock of it has cleared his head even further, and he realizes that they’ve got about two seconds before some random person walks in here and screams for security.

“Hey! Over here!”

He’s about four and a half feet tall now (much to his annoyance and horror) and waves his crab claws at her. The rest of his body is mostly weasel, save for patches of carapace here and there, and antennae.

jeff | ota (potential cws: mental manipulation, gaslighting)

[cacophonish]

i. Exhibiting Odd Behaviors
Jeff spends an awful lot of time at the exhibit. It's like he's immersing himself in it, breathing in the strange and surreal, and swimming in the unsettled emotions of those particularly affected by the subtly mind-bending installations. To him it's like... walking into a home while someone's got cookies in the oven.

Fucking mouthwatering. 

And hey, he's been on pretty good behavior lately. Like, as far as anyone can tell, anyway. Doesn't he deserve a treat? The exhibit's already doing some of the work for him, so all he really needs to do is piggyback off of it. Wait until Austin's occupied somewhere else, then flex a little magic and enjoy the buffet.

The hall with the funky acoustics is perfect for it. All he has to do is sing a little song, something so catchy that as the whispers carry it to unsuspecting patrons, it just sticks in their heads and they can't stop thinking about it. It stays in their ears, twists and winds through their heads, and loops, again and again and again. Anyone unfortunate enough to have heard one of his playful little tunes may find themselves obsessing over a single thought, fixated, as they enter the next room.

The mouth wants to tell you a secret. It already told your friends. Or: You know that eye. Or: It's so hungry. Or: That's your hand. Or: Swim. And so on.

And while Jeff isn't intending on targeting any ADI personnel with his mischief-- in fact, he'll be on his best behavior as soon as he spots anyone he recognizes from the bus or hotel-- who's to say someone doesn't enter the hall at exactly the right (or wrong) time. You could catch a little friendly fire, or you could approach just as the earworm begins to take hold of some unsuspecting patron.

Save somebody from the mouth. Push them in. Comfort a woman in hysterics (poor thing, she's just overwhelmed by the exhibit!). Confront Jeff. Have fun!

When he isn't using the mind bending art installations as a personal buffet, you may still catch Jeff doing a few odd things here and there. By the exhibit with the little iron men, he'll occasionally look over at something others may not notice, wink, and put a finger to his lips, as if conspiring with the escaped stick figures.

And, on one afternoon, Jeff will park himself in front of the massive oceanic canvas, seemingly transfixed by it. He'll stay there for a few hours, just watching, with a dreamy, longing look on his face. Always, always, always, he's convinced of another world, just beyond the one he exists in. One day, he'll find his way in...

...

Anyway! He'll also be a good little ADI stooge and play investigator when he needs to. Want a museum buddy? Pair up with Jeff!

ii. a puzzling evolution
Jeff never manages to finish a game of evolution. He tries to grow wings, goes extinct almost immediately, gets bored, and that's the end of that. Saved by his fractured attention span.

But hey, he's certainly noticed the weasels and crabs on the museum grounds, and as some of his ADI co-workers start to act weird and begin to change into grotesque abominations, he slowly, slooooowly puts two and two together and comes to a conclusion...

He must have a weasel.

"Hey, can I have some of your sandwich?" For weasel bait.

Alternately, if you're not eating a sandwich, Jeff might still approach you, carrying either a small cardboard box or a pillowcase swiped from the hotel. 

"Do you, um, know anything about catching weasels? I think I saw Dave from Accounting hiding in the gift shop..." 

iii. the wheels on the bus
It's a long, long bus ride home, and yeah, people are probably traumatized, injured, in various stages of recovery from their weasel and/or crab transformations, which means the last thing anyone wants is Jeff being a gremlin, but.

Well.

It's inevitable.

He starts the ride just chilling in his seat, petting a wriggling, fussy weasel, murmuring something like, "You have such human eyes..." If asked about it, he'll claim it's one of their ADI co-workers, who he's rescuing in case the transformation's temporary, or they find a cure, or whatever...

(It's possible that the weasel is just a total stranger, though.)

Anyway, a few hours later, Jeff will be frantically searching the bus. Don't mind him as he ducks to look under your seat.

"C'mon, where are you..."

Hope you weren't trying to take a nap, because he's going to get right up in your personal space as he looks around your seat.

"Hey, you seen a weasel running around here?"

There's a loose weasel on the bus. This is not a drill.

iv. wildcard
Toss anything at me! If you want to plot anything in particular, you can reach me at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200.

III

[abrightboy]

A mostly weasel Neal has fallen asleep on the seat beside him and there’s barely a moment’s peace before - annoyingly - there’s more ruckus.

Malcolm looks around for the source of it, and it’s Jeff making clicky noises like you might make at a cat and rummaging around the floor directly behind his seat. He turns to sit on his knees on the seat, peering over the back of it.

“Jeff? What are you doing?”

[byeeeeeeeee]

[ I. Museum ]

He likes the museum. Flapjack is less interested, but didn't want to be left behind at the hotel, so the bird stays quiet and mostly napping inside Hunter's hoodie.

The museum is educational, like a book you can walk through. Even the weirder exhibits don't strike him as odd, until he remembers he's in the Human Realm, and metal men running away from their display is probably not normal. Neither is the mouth with a warning not to touch or feed, and he doesn't stick around to find out why.

It's the giant blue canvas that gets his attention. At first, it feels like a nice, quiet place to recharge. That quickly changes. It isn't the eel-shaped thing that bothers him, but the feeling of being somewhere deep and far away and under. It's alien, but also too familiar.

He takes a step back and turns to leave. Sorry if you happen to be in the way.

[ IIa. Puzzling Evolution ]

He likes a good challenge, but this game sucks. No matter what option he chooses, or what combinations he tries, he can't find the path to humans. Most of his attempts end with extinction.

"This is someone's idea of a joke, right?"

Even so, he tells himself to give it just one more try, though he's poking the screen more forcefully than necessary.

[ IIb. Crappy Crabby Evolution ]

Is that Hunter scooting sideways through the room? Yes. That is also him stopping at a display table and peering under. Seemingly satisfied, he crouches and wiggles backward until he is completely under and hidden. He has one arm wrapped up in his hoodie and is clutching it across his chest.

Flapjack flits between Hunter and the tabletop, where he flaps and hops and makes noise until someone notices.

[ Wildcard ]

Open for anything! Plurk: DeadTea, Discord: deadtea#7909

iia

[setthetone]

"Maybe it's a joke display?"

Carter has been watching him for a while, curious to see how the game works and what happens in the end, but it looks challenging. Hunter seems to keep losing and the word extinction keeps coming back.

There's something chilling about the outcome, however biologically accurate it might be.

"And you can't actually win? That would be kinda mean though... Unless it's some kind of look what an unlikely wonder it is that our evolution managed to take place thing?"

Gil Arroyo || Prodigal Son

[inlieuofadad]

➥ Bus Ride
Gil sure hates this!!! His bones hurt and every time he starts to doze off he dreams of spiders, and if he's not dozing off he's listening to bickering or people who won't keep their Netflix feeds on their phones piping into their headsets like civilized human beings.

Hour seven sees him giving the seat in front of him a very dignified kick after pressing his knee into lumbar cushion doesn't get the person to lean forward again when said person leans back.

➥ Exhibiting Odd Behaviors
Gil is not much of a museum guy. He mostly came to keep an eye on his kids--his kids, Malcolm and Tim and Jeff. That's an unsettling thought. He's got three of them now. Maybe Neal, but the jury is out on that one.

Unfortunately they've all gone different directions, which makes it hard to keep tabs. In the end he starts taking in the exhibits, lingering in the dome that leeches away color to see the reactions of the people passing through, and to see if it has any impact other than aesthetic. He wanders through the crushing tunnel, but that one he can't stand to stay in. The vertigo, the pressure, the claustrophobia, it hits him in weird places he doesn't want to address. It takes him a few minutes of sitting on a bench near the exit to recover, physically and mentally.

The whisper-shout hall is briefly entertaining, until a couple at the far end gets into a quiet argument that then blasts its way through the whole thing. Gil walks into the area with the watery moving paintings and walks out again as soon as he sees something distant swimming his way.

When the little metal men run off...

Yeah forget that, he's going to the gift shop.

➥ Hush, Hush
Gil doesn't jog. It's not that he actively hates the practice, he just doesn't, y'know, do it. He doesn't like it. And he doesn't need to meet any stringent speed or endurance conditions for his position at the NYPD at this point in his career. He keeps himself up well enough, but he's old and he's tired and it's cold and he doesn't jog.

Which is why he's very confused to wake up doing so along the Gloucester waterfront.

He was dreaming, he remembers that, something awful about spiders, which makes him touch the spot just under the collar of his turtleneck where he has a tattoo of a web where there wasn't one before that bus.

That bus that he filed a report on with the ADI that didn't note he was 'victim' being interviewed.

He's been splitting his time between Malcolm's place and Bonnie's, keeping an eye on Jeff, being there to serve as a listening ear if and when the kid is ready. He goes back to Bonnie's now, since that's where he went to sleep.

Feel free to catch him anywhere between the jogging trail and the flophouse, dressed to exercise and looking disoriented and a little disturbed.

On any of the three days it happens.

For those at Bonnie's or who have access to Neal and Malcolm's house, he can also be spotted in the communal kitchen of the former in his pajamas, making a full and healthy breakfast. Or the kitchen of the latter, doing the same. He won't respond immediately when addressed.

hush hush

[cacophonish]

You know who's got a lot of experience waking up in places he doesn't remember, having lived hours-- sometimes days-- that are totally lost to the abyss of a blackout?

This guy.

Jeff's seen some of the sleepwalking in action. He's lurked around enough to catch glimpses, here and there, of people on autopilot, shuffling about, and it's all so fascinating, isn't it? He's pretty sure he never exercised or made a nice, healthy meal when his conscious brain used to shut down and let whatever... wasted, subconscious animal instinct take over.

Well. Good for Gil. He could use a little self care.

Jeff, bright eyed and wide awake (he never used to be this chipper in the mornings, right?) claps a hand on Gil's shoulder and leans over to look at what he's making. It looks good. Healthy and well balanced.

...so of course Jeff's face falls.

"Aw man, no pancakes?"

Bucky/Winter | OTA

[worthallthis]

I. Bus rides are better than trains

Winter had admittedly hesitated before signing up for this particular field trip, given the utter wreck he had been getting to the last one. Until he's told there's no train, this time, but a bus. He hasn't been on a bus before, given he walks everywhere in town and HYDRA is not big on public transportation.

(He has stalked Gus, or perhaps been stalked by Gus, but has not yet been on it.)

So he packs a duffel, includes a few books and the last of his birthday snacks, and piles on the bus. Whoever sits next to him, or just near him given the bus is probably not all the way full, will be treated to him looking out the window with clear interest in everything they pass, attempting to read without doing it out loud to annoy the entire bus-- he fails, but winds up whispering instead; he's reading the Hobbit, for anyone paying attention-- or awkward attempts at conversation. Or maybe he offers you a chocolate cookie.


II. Regular museum behaviors

As it turns out? Winter loves museums. Yes, they're here for work, yes, there's a spooky art exhibit to check out, but all the natural history shit? He is loving it, and spends far more time prowling around the halls full of dinosaur bones and geological samples than playing strange video games or squinting at sea monsters.

"That's amazing," he says. "Isn't that amazing? It's so big!"

You might need to pull him away from the fossils to make him do actual work, guys.


III. Irregular museum behaviors

Okay, okay, he's here to work, too. He finally gets to the spooky art exhibit and stares at everything in it, but he doesn't enjoy it nearly as much. Of course, he enjoys it more than some, given he doesn't sprout any weird appendages or start to bite people or anything. (When he gets back to the hotel and peels off the gloves he habitually wears to cover the metal arm, he finds the metal is rather more carapace like, but that fades after a day or so.)

What he mostly does is quietly stalk the little animated stick men. He doesn't need to run. He follows quietly and carefully, he lies in wait, and he stomps on them when he finds them, as if they were particularly large and strange bugs.


IV. Distractions

Yelena has sneakiness she wants to do, so Winter is playing deflection. He walks someplace he's not supposed to, near to the offices she wants to get into, and acts confused and belligerent. It's not hard. He has a very good blank expression and an even better glower. "This is where I was told to go," he protests grouchily. "The hall of early man is supposed to be this way."


V. Being a tourist, of his own assassin-y stripe

Winter has never been to Buffalo, that he can recall. In between all the drama in the museum, and looking after people who have changed or dealing with the results of those changes, he kind of... pokes around. Visits a park. Pokes his nose into a couple shops. Buys a few fancy coffees to share with whoever is walking around with him. Scales a building or three. As one does.

II

[musicdied]

"Right?" Yelena says, and it's hard to tell if her grin is for Winter's clear awe, or for the display itself. They may both be trained killers with absolutely terrifying body counts, but dinosaurs are just cool. Anyone who doesn't understand that is the sort of monsters even an avatar would shrink from.

"It's one thing, reading about how big they are, but it's amazing to actually see it."

Emet-Selch | Final Fantasy XIV | ota!

[unnecessaryflourishes]

{Exhibiting Odd Behaviors}

[Museums, at least, are nothing particularly new to Emet-Selch. He has not, admittedly, always had time or interest enough to spare for such endeavors, but he is well aware of their existence. And truth be told, the fact that there are - apparently - things that are distinctly unusual going on is no surprise either. Not when he has seen the variety of things that had come out of Allag at its height.

On the other hand, he is more than a little interested by the fact that no one else seems to think much of anything much of the exhibit itself. Which is only made all the more profound by the artworks on display inside the exhibit, many of which he finds unsettling enough to not linger. And yet, even despite that he stays long enough to get a general sense of the exhibits.

He does, however, endeavor to keep his distance from the largest painting on display. He has known quite enough isolation over the long millennia and has no particular desire to experience it any more than absolutely necessary.]

{Puzzling Evolution}

[At first, it's nothing more than curiosity that has Emet-Selch taking a look at the interactive displays. Even the fact that there seem to be far more things that lead to extinction than not, isn't much of a surpise. Not every creation that had come about in the days of yore had been well suited to life on the star, be it to better it or not. And though there had been some few who had seen the end of a promising sort of lifeform as sad it had been the way of things, back than. On the other hand... it is certainly a frustrating experience to have things end in naught more but extinction over and over.]

You would think they'd choose something less frustrating, with how prominently placed these are.

[It's only later that he comes to realize that not even he has escaped unchanged - he had thought nothing of the singular time he'd managed to find an end that had not been extinction, and even the sharp claws of a weasel are not actually anything particularly unusual. Nor does much notice when his teeth shift slowly to something very distinctly more predatory, though no doubt anyone chancing to speak to him will notice the sharp points of something nearer to fangs in his mouth.

The urge to find a nice cozy den, on the other hand, is harder to ignore, though he at manages to make it out of the building before giving in and finding the nearest tree to fold himself in under. It may look odd, but just at the moment he finds he doesn't much care about that.]

Yelena Belova | MCU

[musicdied]

I. Exhibiting Odd Behaviors - open
Yelena is cautious with her approach to the Seeing the Unseeable exhibit, watching people interact with the light dome and the tunnel to see how they react, if they panic or flinch more than can be explained by the weird optical illusions before taking a run through herself. She's not entirely certain if it's that caution that prevents her from encountering anything odd until she passes by the stick-figure sculpture, or if there's really nothing amiss with the more obvious illusions.

Regardless, there's a creak when she passes by the sculpture, and when she looks back - there are holes, and the clatter of tiny footsteps. Perhaps she passes you while she hunts down little metal figures, and she raises one hand to her lips to warn you to be quiet, cocking her head toward a corner around which something darts, ankle height. Does the museum have rats? Let's hope it doesn't have rats.

Or perhaps you encounter her later, staring at the painting of a heart rather more intently than it probably deserves.

II. A Puzzling Evolution - open
It takes her a while to get to the evolution game, and later, she'll wonder if that's why she was much luckier than so many of her colleages. Than two, in particular. Her first two runs through, her species goes extinct, falling to plague or predators. The third, she comes out as a weasel, and with reasonable assurance that the game probably doesn't have any probing, vicious questions hiding somewhere in its code.

The changes are subtle at first, though anyone who noticed her on the bus here, or interacted with her at the motel the evening prior might wonder when she had the time to dye her hair - and why she chose that odd shade of reddish brown, which really doesn't quite suit her.

The jerky she's gnawing on is not, at least, notably unusual - she has a tendency to eat what's available.

III. Off Exhibition - closed to Steve Rogers, Winter, and John Sheppard
The changes don't stay subtle - and even if hers did, there are others much more advanced in their afflictions, and both panicked whispers about monsters and people praising, just a little too brightly, the costumed performers spread like wildfire.

It's not hard to guess where the problem's coming from, and while others plot some curative destruction, she goes looking for information. The museum guides have nothing to tell her other than the game was provided by a donor who wished to remain anonymous. That's fine. Museums have records.

Once she has an idea of where to find these records, it's time to find some co-conspirators. Steve and Winter, she tracks down to play distraction and lookout respectively.

Which, not long after the most recent panic surrounding one of the displays, puts her and John in the admin offices as the clock ticks down.

"You check that workstation," she suggests. "I will take this one."

III

[worthallthis]

Winter is frowning at her eyes, actually looking at her eyes which is unusual in and of itself, while she pitches the plan to him. "I can... probably be a distraction," he says dubiously. "But I am not good at talking to people. Or lying."