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apocalypsehowcomm2023-08-16 07:43 am
Event - Feeling Faint
(cw: Alterations in reality and perception, chance for violence or injury, potential chance of loss of name or other pieces of a character’s identity, depending on conversations with NPC)
Somewhere, deep in ADI’s basement, there’s a meadow in a metal room. That room has a door that always stays locked. Yet, after a couple visitors come by to talk to the inhabitant of that room, that door is unlocked and the meadow vanishes along with the inhabitant.
It isn’t a quick thing, no light switch is flicked announcing the change in the status quo, it’s an irregular thing. One day everything is as it should be and then, for an hour, all of the illusions and glamours making every non-human seem human simply vanishes. Then it’s two hours. Then a whole day. Then it’s only flickers now and then or only portions of a body left unchanged, all interspersed with days where nothing seems to happen at all. Like someone’s playing a game. Something that leaves the locals on edge as ‘monster’ sightings increase and send a ripple of fear and doubt through town. Fear and doubt that is sometimes answered in unkindness at best and violence and fear at worse.
Though, who the sadistic someone is might be difficult to pinpoint for those outside of the know. Anyone who goes looking or has ways of sensing where the fluctuations are coming from might come across a handsome stranger perched atop one of the now-vacant warehouses once used by Oculus where a rich carpet of grass and tumbling ivy now overtakes the roof and spills down the sides.
For the brave or curious or angry at heart, the stranger will turn to their visitor with a small, knowing smile from where they’re sat in their meadow, a flower crown in hand and held out like an offering. “Hello, who do we have here, then?”
(cw: extreme distress, hallucinations, supernaturally heightened emotions, blood, monstrous creatures, potential for violence and death)
"Please! Please"--your name, someone is shouting your name--"I need- please! Help!" The voice is a familiar one, someone you care for, or at least have no negative feelings about. They might be someone you've met here in Gloucester, or they could be someone from home. They're distressed, they're in Dogtown. You only hear them as you travel around the edges of the park. And there are even glimpses of them. Flashes of a face that seems to belong to the person who's shouting.
Even if you're wary, sensibly so, the pitch, the distress, puts some sort of feeling into you. Fear, perhaps, for the 'person' in danger? Anger that someone would try to impersonate someone you love? Hopelessness that you can't actually do anything to help? The emotion fills your belly, wells up like a tide and crashes through the mind. It's not impossible to resist going into Dogtown, but it's certainly difficult.
Those who get any substantial distance, will note that they seem to be drawn deeper and deeper into the wood and that the ground grows moist and ruddy. The scent of iron fills the nose and senses. Those who have a sense of Dogtown as it is now may be able to tell that they're being drawn toward the blood river in the southern reaches of the park. Getting closer, you'll be able to see a creature shambling along sideways on clawed and webbed feet. It swings a lantern from its head that flashes to look like the person you know now and again. The false form shouts in fear and terror, crying out.
Should the creature spot you spotting it… be prepared. It will attack immediately, and it doesn't seem to pull its bites or slashes. While ordinary means are enough to bring it down, there is definitely more than one creature. Perhaps a brood has recently hatched in the river.
(cw: hallucination, altered mental states, gaslighting)
There's a face that keeps turning up around town, but it's not really clear who it is. It's a Caucasian, mustachioed gentleman who seems to be in books where he doesn't belong, in the background of photographs, both old and new, and even on advertisements. You might notice him only in a few things at first, but once you clock him… he's everywhere.
Inquiries into his identity net a mixed response from locals. He's just… some man. Nice mustache, though! Does he look a little like Matthew McConaughey? He just looks like another New Englander, maybe some founder for Gloucester? A reverse image search yields much the same results. There are actors and models who look vaguely like this man, but no one that definitively matches him.
The strange thing is that as you see him more and more, there's the feeling of a hand gently touching your shoulder. A large, masculine hand, as far as anyone with particularly acute senses can tell. It only lasts a moment, and then it's gone. You can never turn fast enough to see anyone, and they don't appear in any mirrors; though… there's a mild distortion in the air if you manage to glimpse a reflection somehow.
Those touched by the hand of the mustachioed man will find themselves feeling more and more inclined toward mischief. Have you seen the mustachioed man? No, no, you haven't. When shown photos including him, you might be inclined to lie and say you see someone else entirely. It's just a little mean. With things in Gloucester spinning out of control, perhaps you ought to grasp control where you can. Making someone doubt themselves and their reality? That's one of the most powerful forms of control out there.
- 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!
- FLICKER (16 August - Potentially Onward) - Players are welcome to control their own NPC interactions. Some might be understanding or come to their defense while others might turn a blind or turn to violence. These moments of violence shouldn’t be outright mobs so much as small groups close to a mugging that only happen once and a while, not a certainty. Characters will have the chance to talk to Milo and either convince them to continue the illusions or drop them entirely, what happens with the illusions from an IC standpoint will depend entirely on these interactions, so if you tag into Milo’s interaction, please make sure that thread is prioritized.
- FEINT (16-23 August) - The monstrous creatures can be killed with enough bullets or other normally lethal methods. The figures they mimic will be perfect copies of characters who will elicit strong emotions in your characters. The only limit on who these can be would be for characters already in games. Please just get the other player's permission. If two characters are together, the creature will only mimic one important person. The mimicked individual will provide reasonable (if terrified) responses to questions that are shouted at them.
- FIGMENT (16-31 August) - Characters will be able to find plenty of people who look vaguely like the mustachioed man, but efforts to track them down will lead to dead ends. They seem to be ordinary actors, models, and people who have had their photos show up on an image search. Characters trying to investigate the strange happenings in Gloucester and the surrounding area, particularly Dogtown, will find themselves seeing the man more often than others. They'll also suffer the effects of the man's 'touch.' Characters who feel compelled to gaslight and deceive others will be affected until they take out that impulse on someone. It doesn't need to be anyone they care about; though, that makes it feel better somehow. Individuals aligned with the Spiral may find themselves feeling particularly well fed for the month of August on fear juice.
Re: I
Really, how could he know? This is a whole different world. How was he supposed to know that was a faerie?
He decides, "I'm gonna start calling you fucking Stevie." And he is grimly pleased that this name actually works.
Re: I
Well. Yeah, he maybe should've known better, but it's not like he'd ever expected to run into faeries in real life.
He groans, quietly, at the nickname and at the situation - at everything, really. "My ma is rolling over in her grave."
And Winter is calling him Stevie, and somehow that's the worst but also kind of the best and his face is doing something complicated to mirror the complicated thing going on right now in his chest. He's kind of terrified and ashamed and even the tiniest bit relieved that not everything is gone, all at once, and he isn't sure what to say, just yet.
Re: I
It doesn't seem very fair to take a whole-ass name just for answering some questions, though.
Re: I
But if he could give that away without even knowing, without even noticing -
"I don't know," he says, watching Winter with something like wariness and even more like worry in his eyes. "I don't - I got what I asked for. I don't know if we should risk trying to, uh. Twist up the deal even more."
Now that he's thinking about faeries, he feels like this could get very convoluted, very fast. And sometimes making deals you think you understand can be worse than the slip of a tongue.
Or what if they try to take the answers they gave back, and take too much with it? What if they take something from Winter?
Re: I
He might have an inkling of an idea, himself, but he has no idea how he'd make it work. It's not like there isn't a name he has that he isn't using.
Re: I
"I - I'm sorry." Maybe it's backward, that he's apologizing for losing his own name, but it just tumbles out of his mouth. "But at least we know for sure how the illusions work."
Of course... the next thought he has makes him slow down, distracted, possibly making it a little harder for Winter to pull him along. "Do you think if people tried to leave. The way we did... Would ADI start taking names off that list?"
He'd like to think they wouldn't - but he can't dismiss the possibility that they would. "Maybe we'll need to make it look like someone vanishes. If they want to walk away."
Re: I
He frowns. "I don't know. Even if they did, would the faerie actually do it? Stop protecting people? There's so many of them. Who left. If they can keep going with so many a few more or less isn't. Isn't anything, is it?" God, that's got to be a lot of power. Who all is this faerie scaring in order to fuel it?
Re: I
"I don't know," he has to admit, because he doesn't know what the faerie would do. Certainly not go out of their way, he thinks. He didn't get that impression at all. They were content, but not altruistic. Which - well. Knowing it's a faerie makes that idea less surprising. "I don't think it's much trouble to keep it going. But I don't know what they'd do if ADI actually threatened them unless they stopped."
Maybe they'd keep it up anyway. Maybe they'd stop. He shakes his head. He really doesn't know. "I want to trust them, but - " There's a part of him now that can't. That does feel more than a little betrayed. And still frightened, for his friends.
Re: I
Re: I
Or maybe - "They never threatened me. Or anyone else. Not the way ADI did." Sure, they indicated the relationship was mutually beneficial, but that's understandable. Even Rogers knows and can accept that most people won't do things just because they ought to be done. But not every motive has to be negative, either.
And if they are some kind of fae - then taking his name is just what they do. It probably wasn't even malicious; in fact, it feels a lot more honest than a lot of what he's learned about the way, say, the entities and their avatars do things. "They were just being what they are," he says out loud. "That's all you can ask of anybody, isn't it?"
Re: I
Not that he's necessarily saying it was malicious, either-- faeries gonna faerie-- but there has to be something rotten in there somewhere if there's magic in this world.
Re: I
At the same time... he can remember wanting his own strength back, his own ability to do something, anything, that he'd thought about -
Well. He guesses he can just understand, on some level, where such a compromise could be made. Even if he knows it shouldn't be.
"You're right," he finally says, unhappy about it, unable to shake the desire to trust, and now second-guessing it. But if anything, he's unhappy with the situation. Not with Winter, especially for pointing out what's probably true. Even if the way he calls him Stevie makes him feel a little small and stupid. That's not Winter's intent, and he knows that, too.
"Unless it's different, for people like them."
He doesn't sound like he really thinks that is the case, though.
Re: I
So he's torn on that, too. Somebody like Rue or Cortana not having that protection would... suck. A lot. But it means their protection also comes from fear. Whose fear? How much? He doesn't know.
Re: I
It's not important, he supposes. What's important is keeping the people who definitely aren't from this world and don't have the luxury of passing as human protected. "I just wish there were another way to do things. Without fear, if that's where it's coming from. But I guess at least we know we have time, if we want to try to figure something out."
Of course, all his ideas had maybe hinged on someone with technical knowledge coming up with something... and they seem very short on people like that, these days.
Re: I
Re: I
He wishes that, too. "I don't like the idea of hiding, it's not fair that they have to do it. But that kind of thing takes time. A lot of it."
He pauses, inhales. "But it doesn't mean we can't try to figure out how to start things moving, either."
He's not sure how, but - it is worth doing, too.
Re: I
Re: I
He's never been all that great with people, but he can at least do his part and not ignore the problem, or assume someone else will solve it.
Re: I
Because he'd made the decision, sure, but without Stevie saying anything about it. And names are important. If Stevie-- or whatever name he chooses-- doesn't like it, he won't use it. Even if he wants to. Stevie had wanted to call him Bucky, but didn't, because he didn't like it, so the least he can do is repay the favor.
Re: I
A pause.
"Although I don't think I could handle everybody calling me that."
Jesus, no. It'd be as bad as Steven.
But, "I don't mind if it's you, though." It makes him feel a little childish, a little small, but - well, aside from the fact that he probably deserves that, right now... it's also nostalgic and weirdly sort of good. Coming from Winter.
Re: I
Since Stevie is, probably, okay. Just for them, though. And that's okay, too. He kind of likes that.
Re: I
"Okay," he agrees. "Okay. Stevie for you. Rogers, for everyone else."
He can make that work.