apocalypsehowcomm | Event - A Little Perspective

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Event - A Little Perspective

A Little Perspective

The citizens of Gloucester are abuzz with talk of the new town square in the heart of the city. After some miserable few months… years(?) for some of the citizenry, it's a welcome spark of joy. The prize at the center of the square is a perfect replica of Gloucester set upon a large stone slab for people to view and enjoy. Some small festivities have been set up around the square. Food carts with tasty local offerings–it's a lot of seafood–and hawkers looking to sell jewelry, paintings, and other sundries.

The new town square, itself, is bracketed by the General's Store on one side, other tourist-type shops on two others, and an open park field with benches and plenty of shade trees on the other side. There are planters with gorgeous new flowers and everything has a shining, new feeling to it. Ring out the end of summer with the tiny bells that adorn the mini-clocktower in the replica city!

➥ Small Fears

Photo of a miniature New England town. Based on the toy cars, it seems to be from the 1950s or 60s.
(cw: altered perception of reality, existential crisis, possible starvation, isolation)

The disappearances don’t happen all at once, but they do take place over the course of a few, unremarkable, hours. One by one, seven people step through a door, cross a street, or go to investigate the brand new replica of Gloucester unveiled in the middle of town and vanish.

Except, to them, they don’t. It’s everyone else who vanishes. Whatever path they were on goes uninterrupted, but every other soul is gone, leaving the streets eerily silent. Perhaps you can find each other through calling out or through chance, but it seems only a few others have been left behind.

It’s not just the lack of anyone else that’s off. It’s there in the very sky, a fog-filled horizon leaves little else to see even from the tallest building in the city…if you’re lucky. Where there should be stars or roads or trees beyond the confines of the city, there are unimaginably massive shadows, creatures that loom and shift and seem to occasionally try to stretch their dark and foggy forms down to grab for people who stay outside too long. Surely inside will be safer.

And, for the most part, it is. There’s no running water, no food that isn’t made of plastic, and only the weak yellow glow of lights that seem to come on and off every few hours without any switches or plugs to be seen. Except then there’s the nightmares. There’s no rhyme or reason, no indication of which building will hold the nightmarish scenario that plays out. The only certain thing is that there’s seven of them…and they’re oddly specific, as though tailor made to one individual. Hopefully a friend or stranger can be the voice of reason needed to see you through, but even facing your fears doesn’t seem to set things right. If anything, as time goes on, it only seems to make the shadows get more agitated. More creative…

➥ Big Fears

An enormous, shadowy figure shrouded in mist reaches out toward a tiny figure on the ground.
(cw: gaslighting, potential for sadism, potential for large-scale destruction and injury/death, body horror, nausea, vertigo, supernaturally induced dread)

For those fortunate enough not to be sucked into the miniature town at the center of Gloucester, there's still more than enough trouble to go around. Mainly, the matter of getting people out of the town, whether they be friends or strangers. You might notice the little figures darting about the replica streets or banging at the tiny windows of buildings. Unfortunate that most (or maybe all) of them run in terror at the sight of you when you try to reach out and the sound of you when you make to run.

Most ordinary people walking by don't seem to notice anything amiss like you do. To them, it's just a quaint little attraction to view for a few minutes and then move on. The people trapped within it go unnoticed or unremarked. Even some of the people who work for ADI can't see it, like they have some sort of blindspot that you lack.

Regardless, there's the matter of rescue (or torment for the more sadistic persons out there). The tiny town, itself is designed in such a manner as to make access to the deeper portions of it challenging. The raised platform and general size makes it all but impossible for anyone under 8 feet tall to actually reach the center of the town without having to climb up onto it. And that… has rather dire ramifications. Those seeking to simply pull apart the town or climb onto it with little regard to the structures will find that any time they disturb or destroy a structure, they have a sinking, horrible feeling in the pit of their stomach. If it's a building that's near to where they are, they might even hear the sound of the real structure in Gloucester buckling and breaking as people scream and flee. Some unnatural force seems to be destroying their town and they have no explanation for it. You do, though. You know exactly what you've done. Perhaps you'll even hear about the injured and dead the next time you happen to read, listen to, or watch the news.

With wanton destruction a less-than-ideal solution to get to the darting figures in the town, that leaves a few other solutions. You could gather a team of people to help you corral the figures. If your hands aren't enough, perhaps others will be. The figures are far faster than they should be when they're that tiny or maybe it's that you're having trouble perceiving the depth of the place and where they are in space. In any case… more hands.

Or, maybe you'll go for a more creative option. If hands won't work, then some tape or netting or other traps might slow your quarry down enough to snatch. Perhaps you're even the sort to construct elaborate, Rube Goldberg-style contraptions to catch the tiny figures without hurting them. Much.

Emotion might rule the day for you instead. If you can just find some way to communicate that you're not a danger, that you're there to help, maybe that would have the figure willing to approach you, to climb into your hand of their own accord. It's maybe the kindest and least terrifying route, but it's also likely to take the longest, and time is of the essence.

At least once you manage to pull a rescued person past a seeming threshold, they transform very suddenly into their full-sized self with all the pain, nausea, and vertigo that comes with the sensation of your body exploding from within. The sense of being too large may persist for just a few hours or up to several days for the particularly unlucky.

Those who spend long enough observing the tiny town will note that there is a small timer affixed to one of the buildings where a billboard is in the real Gloucester. It is steadily counting down and it carries with it a sense of impending doom. When the clock strikes zero, the entire display will simply vanish from the center of Gloucester, like it was never there. Anyone still trapped within will also vanish. All references in newspapers and news stories from the past few weeks will vanish.

Was it ever really there? Most ordinary people don't seem to think so. What an interesting suggestion. Maybe you should let the mayor know. A tiny version of Gloucester sounds like it would be a lovely little attraction in the new town square!

➥ One Fear

A deer-like, humanoid figure stands in black and white, slightly hunched.
(cw: altered mental states; compulsion; painful transformation; dehumanization; being hunted; potential for violence, injury, and death, including gun violence)

There's a restless feeling about ADI headquarters, a strange sort of readiness and tension growing under the day to day office drudgery one always experiences in a lull between major crises. It's an itch in the back of one's mind, a half-noticed shift like the scent of blood carried on a distant wind. The longer the feeling lingers, the more unbearably dull all the paperwork and research and so forth becomes.

Then, all at once, it comes into focus. For some, it's sharp pain followed by a sudden feeling of terror, the knowledge that you are among predators that mean you harm. For others, it's that scent growing sharp and strong the moment you spot your prey.

The prey are easily spotted, at least within the bounds of ADI property, where Milo's glamour doesn't hide nonhumans and not-quite-humans from one another. The change is often small but always unmistakeable: a set of horns or antlers sprouting from one's head, still bloody from their sudden extrusion; the long ears of a rabbit, quivering with the effort to hear the hunters' approach; feathers that ripple out along one's arms in a mockery of wings; or the silky tail of a fox or mink, the mark of a predator long turned prey at the hands of humans. Any who find themselves marked as prey undergo one or more of these small transformations, gaining characteristics that clearly mark them as one of many animals traditionally considered to be game for hunting or trapping.

And if you're not prey? That makes you the hunter. The compulsion to hunt is overwhelming from the moment you spot a coworker, roommate, or even a dear friend marked as prey. Perhaps you're sly about it and set traps, or stalk them from afar. Or perhaps they run and you simply can't resist the urge to chase. What you'll do if you catch them…well, that depends on one's personality, or perhaps on luck. Maybe you'll snap out of it long enough to let them go. Maybe you'll try to lock them up–for their own good, of course, until you work out how to fix this. Or maybe just chasing them down isn't enough to satisfy the urge–the most obsessed hunters might attack, maul, or even shoot their prey if nothing stops them.

Everyone feels it, though. Anyone who isn't marked as prey will feel the compulsion to hunt when they see someone who is, and it simply will not stop as long as the mark remains. Even outside of ADI, normal citizens will even start to react the same way to something they can't even see through the glamour. The only way to end this curse is to remove the animal feature that grew from you–whether that's sawing off a pair of antlers or chopping off a tail.

Good luck…and good hunting.

➥ 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!
SMALL FEARS (16-19 September) - Characters trapped in the tiny town will notice the buildings themselves, while sturdy and able to hold their weight, aren’t exactly built to code, almost like they’re made of various craft supplies and short cuts, even if the end result is very convincing. There’s no food or water in the tiny town, but enterprising characters might be able to collect dew outside and survive a little longer that way. Each character has their own ‘nightmare room’ across the various buildings in town and they won’t be able to escape their own nightmare room without someone else’s help. How they get out of the town through the various efforts of those outside is up to the individual player, but anyone still left in town after four days will either die of lack of resources or from the miniature town’s collapse. Please remember that death is permanent.
BIG FEARS (16-19 September) - Players on the outside are welcome to enact as much destruction and mayhem on Gloucester and its citizens as they would like via the tiny town. Please just let the mods know on the OOC Post in the section dedicated to Town Destruction and Damage so that we can make note of it for future events/the final chapter of the game. Characters that destroy the town will sense the weight of what they've done, even if they don't see or hear the immediate effects. It feels bad to destroy the tiny town. Players are also welcome to come up with creative rescue solutions. The only limitations are that the tiny characters will not be able to understand their speech or anything written for them, so another form of communication may need to be found that doesn't use language.
ONE FEAR (16-30 September) - Players are free to choose any variety of animal features beyond the ones listed, so long as a.) the feature is linked to an animal traditionally hunted and b.) the change is a discrete feature that can be removed, however painfully. Characters with animal features will find that everyone, not just offworlders and people within ADI, seem to feel the same compulsion to hunt them down until the feature is removed.

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If you have questions, please post them HERE!

To sign-up for the Small Fears prompt, sign up HERE

To notify the mods of any town destruction/damage/changes, notify the mods HERE

cw: spiders, egg sacs, insectoid feeding, dead bodies, body horror, clowns, severe PTSD, disassociation, mentions of character deaths, mention of physical impairment and dismemberment, altered mental states, compulsion, painful transformation, dehumanization, being hunted, potential for violence, blood, injury, and death, including gun violence, possible panic attack

A. Small Fears - Closed to Rodney McKay

Sheppard-because his first name doesn't exist anymore, thanks to a certain new buddy of his-is not having a good day.

For one thing, the whole town seems to have up and vanished suddenly, the sky has turned all weird with really big, menacing shadows, and there's no food or running water. It's like the whole town is just...weird, and none of it makes any sense.

And then there's this old house, which seemed like a good safe place to run to, to get away from the giant shadows, to figure out what they can do here, what their next steps might possibly be.

Except.

Except the door locks behind them and the place is...probably not the best place to have hid. There's a familiar stench, the air is humid but clammy, the stone walls slick and fetid. Sheppard's boots step on...things that sound unmentionable as they squelch and crunch under his feet. He rolls his shoulder, still unused to brand new arm that has replaced his crab arm. It's mostly hidden under his jacket but there's a faint red glow off of the biomechanical seams in it.

...and then he sees the egg sacs.

"Oh, crap."

B. One Fear - OTA

The hunter becomes the hunted.

Sheppard really, really thinks he should get the day off after the absolutely horrific experience he's just been through. Like, seriously, he's gonna need about 30 sessions of therapy with Elidibus within the next week alone, and he's not even gonna lie, that's on the low end. You'd think that as an Avatar of the Hunt he could get like a special deal with the Entities, like they'd take it easy on him just cause he feeds them a lot but nooooo...

So he's taking it easy for now, deciding that exploring Dogtown can wait this time, and that he is definitely actually going to seriously and finally take a day off, for once, and then it hits him.

Pinpricks of pain, in his head, and down his back and the back of one arm. There's the sound of tearing--a small, muted noise, but a lot of it. None of it makes any sense, except the fact that he makes a confused, startled noise of alarm. Everything feels...weird, like he's not in a safe place, like he needs to get out of here. Like there's someone or something about to chase him, something lurking, ready to pounce when he least expects it.

"What the hell!?"

He backs up into the wall, but is stopped by some kind of weird pressure. There's a sound, not unlike the sound of a comb being dragged against a surface, and something pushes him back. And then he pulls his (non-biomechanical prosthetic) arm up and sees what's poking out of his jacket.

Quills.

Long, poky quills, and if he doesn't know any better, he'd say they were of a porcupine. He runs to the nearest window and sees that there are a lot of quills, sticking out of his hair (the irony is not lost on him) and his back.

"You know, I'm starting to get tired of mutating! Is there some kind of point card that I'm ticking off and if I get five mammals in a row I get a free smoothie!?"

...he may be yelling to the hallway in general at this point.

C. Wildcard - Anything goes! Hit me up at

indymica!

cw: arachnophobia, nyctophobia, the void, scopophobia, potential violence, violence toward a romantic partner

I. Small Fears - Around Town - Open to tinies or big people trying to rescue/catch her

Blinking and finding herself in a strange place isn't exactly normal for Mercy, but at this point, it's happened more than a handful of times. Waking up at ADI, waking up from a kidnapping, finding herself in a tiny submarine in a blood ocean... the uncanny replication of Gloucester is new, though. And unsettling.

She walks the plastic streets, calling for anyone who might be nearby. "Hello, hello! It's Mercy!" There might be an answering call, but at some point, she finds her cries calling on something else. The creatures that loom above her in the sky, blocking out the sun, are utterly terrifying. When she sees one reach down toward her, she races toward the nearest building and shuts herself inside, quickly searching for the basement to get lower down.

Someone might be running with her or already hiding in there. If they are, she'll move to quickly shove them back from any windows. "We gotta hide. Hurry! There's something out there that- It's big. It's real big."

After the first day or two, Mercy starts to worry. She's been able to suck some water off of one of the little plastic cars in the street, but she hasn't seen food or any proper water since arriving. All of the ponds in the miniature Gloucester are just blue-colored plastic. There's nothing to drink, nothing to eat. Nothing is real. "You're looking parched," she says to anyone she can find. "Any chance you had more'n a lick of dew since waking up here?"

II. Small Fears - Bonnie's Flophouse - Only 1 Please!

The flophouse is home in this world. The flophouse is safe. Or it will be. Mercy knows for certain it has a basement. She's found someone and is sticking with them this time. She needs to stick with people. This town feels like it's the size of normal Gloucester, even if it's all just plastic.

"Should be safe to sleep in here," she tells her companion as they mount the steps up to the flophouse's door. "If anywhere's safe it's-" The door opens onto a silence do deep, it aches in her bones. Mercy stares inside, and though she has misgivings, she can't help herself as she leads them through. Her heart jumps to her throat when the door shuts behind them with a slam. And then nothing. Not a single sound, not even from their own footsteps across an inky black void of a food. She knows this place. She knows the webs along the wall that look almost like delicate strands of multi-colored human hair. The spiders crawling along them are new and horrifying, of course.

There's nowhere to back away from any of it. Just pressing forward into the gloom and silence. She tries to say something, but nothing comes from her lips. No words. Just that cold void beneath their feet and in the air. Worse, perhaps, are the figures. Mama and Papa seem to be fighting with each other in the kitchen. She's never seen them look at each other like that. Is this... about her? It's a wildly incongruous thought given she knows this isn't them. On some level, she knows that, but at the same time...

Mercy looks to her companion, fear and uncertainty clear on her features. She doesn't know what to do here. She needs to stop them. Mama and Papa shouldn't be fighting. To anyone with her, they'll see a pair of dark-haired, middle-aged people with tanned skin. They're both in the range of 5'10" and the woman is wearing a handmade, simple dress. The man is in what looks like a tunic and slacks. Both sets of clothes are well-made, but appear to have been mended many times. The family resemblance for Mercy is there. Her mother's eyes and her father's nose and jawline, along with thickly-calloused hands that are moving to grab and shake the woman.

Edited 2023-09-21 14:58 (UTC)

cw: body horror, blood, transformation

1. [one fear] and in the spring i shed my skin / and it blows away with the changing wind

[For once, everything seems to be going generally fine around ADI, which while not being great is about all Martin can hope for in the general universe. It's at least been a few days without pure insanity, even though he can't shake the feeling something else is coming- when has the second shoe not dropped in the last few years? Despite that, he tries to be calm and professional around the office, helpful at his new home, and generally useful when he can be.

Of course, that generalized anxiety is hard to solve when things do keep happening and your fears leap on you like clockwork. He's in Administration working on some files, but when he stands to put them away and feels his sense of balance shift and he almost collapses. Instead, it feels like he suddenly doesn't know which way up is as his head throbs, a sharp pain in the center like it's being squeezed. He drops the folder he was holding, one hand on the cabinet as the other flies to his head and finds it wet, and oddly shaped, and--

The pain hasn't stopped, but his balance seems to be better, though bringing his hand down and finding blood is not exactly a calming effect. Martin scrambles out his phone, taking a quick look on the floor and above-- surely something just struck him, what was it though? He flips on the camera and turns it to himself to see... ears. A second pair, round and with little short hairs the same color as his natural curls sticking out from the top of his head. Martin swallows hard, gingerly reaching back up to touch at them, and whips his hand away when he realizes he can feel them-- and move them, even. Oh, this better not be anything like the seal thing, that was awful. In addition, he can see on his face what appear to be a few white whiskers, moving in tandem with his mouth and catching any small movement he makes. In the interim, he tries to flex them a bit without thinking, clearing blood from the top before he stumbles through the door.

You might find him just exiting the records room, messy and a bit disoriented, or a bit later as he tries to clean himself up in the bathroom. Despite the prey drive, he's always anxious, so when he sees someone else he tries to offer a smile.]

Er, hello, uhm... do you know what's going on? Because this is not-- this is not what I normally look like.

2. [big fears] the waters turn from blue to red / as towards the sky i offer it

[Cool, so his life is a nightmare, got it. Really, he should have expected this considering they're still being lead by Nia, but-- well just because Elias ran the Archives didn't cause everyone to break out in eyeballs like they were hives. Especially not him, not when he wasn't doing anything, but... well, it's not like he can argue semantics. He flees ADI headquarters as soon as he figures out its Not Safe, running back to the apartment to get a hoodie and pulling his shirt up long enough to buy a face mask. It's cramped and uncomfortable, but there's less people out here trying to kill him.

In the interim, he's come upon the tiny town, examining it as he goes and trying to find little bits of streets he knows when he sees... something moving in there. At first he thinks it might be a bug, but-- no, that's a tiny someone, he's sure of it. Without thinking, he looks up to the closest person and points down.]

What-- what is that? You can see that, right? It looks like-- like someone's in there.

[Or, you may find him later in more silence, sitting nearby to the display and doing... something with his hands. On closer inspection, it looks like he has some sticks from nearby and some shoelaces and is trying to create... something. He's not having an incredible go of it. Feel free to ask or try to chase him off!]

3. [wildcard] here i am, a rabbit hearted girl / frozen in the headlights

[Want something else with Martin? Hit me up via pm, discord, or via plurk at

cancerously and we can plot it out.]

I. Small Fears - Closed to tiny town

One minute Winter is heading out for a walk that is not a patrol, honestly, out onto the regular street with regular cars and regular people, and then when he turns back from closing the front door behind him to find the street-- empty. The buildings strange and not quite right. The cars made of... tin and plastic?

He starts on his not-a-patrol-honestly but he's weirded out. And increasingly nervous.

He starts systematically searching the buildings. Starting with the ones he knows ADI people frequent, and moving outwards. The lack of food and water is concerning. The lack of people is worse, though.

II. Small Nightmares - Closed to tiny town

The railway he leaves for last, but he does have to search it. If just to be thorough. Winter is nothing if not thorough. He approaches it with more nerves than he really should, because it's just stupid empty trains, they're not even moving.

Except they are. There's one at the station and there's-- something. Someone screaming?

(Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать.)

He only knows some of the Words. And he can't really keep them in his head properly, even then. But something about the whisper leaves him shaking, but still going. There's still the screaming. He has to stop the screaming--

Anyone with him, or looking for him when he doesn't show up wherever they've all been meeting, will find him on one of the moving trains rattling around the tiny town, weakly fending off doctors, trying to undo the straps of the toy soldiers only to have the doctors scold him and tie them down again.

III. Small Freedoms - Closed to someone getting him out!

There are hands. He's getting almost to the point where he'll let them take him just to get somewhere else. Anywhere else. Even dying would be better than another nightmare like that train, and slowly being parched to death.

Not quite to the point, but almost... maybe if they try to communicate somehow without grabbing, it will tip the balance.... He hovers under awnings and in doorways, looking for the hands, but not quite going anywhere they can reach him. Yet.

IV. Post-Fears - Closed to the housemates

For several days, Winter has absolutely no desire to go anywhere. Or do anything. He spends an inordinate amount of time in the closet in the room he and Stevie share in the house. When he's not in the closet, he's in the bath, soaking up the water he'd been without for days. And when he's not in the bath, he's slinking around the house like a ghost, saying little, or sometimes writing obsessively in one of his journals that he won't let anyone read.

After a couple of those days, he'll slink up close to someone, just out of touching range, and sit. Or maybe lean on the wall, if they're up and about doing something. He wants presence, but he doesn't think he can handle touch again. Not yet. Talk to him, housemates. Maybe he'll muster up something to say back.

V. One Fear - OTA

The first day Winter braves the outdoors, he lasts about an hour. The second day, he makes a full patrol of the town like he used to-- except halfway through there's a searing pain on his head, as skin splits and hair parts and something grows out of the top of his skull.

He crouches on the ground, hands clasped to his head, from which sprout a really impressive rack of antlers. Getting through doorways is going to be tricky.

But first he has to get home with half the town suddenly wanting to get their hands on him. He bolts blindly.

(ooc: will match format if brackets are prefered!)

i. Small Fears - Around town - ota

"Hello!?"

Is it smart to strut around a ghost town and call out when massive fog creatures might reach down from the sky to grab you? Probably not.

Then again, he's not really strutting down the streets and confidently calling out. It's more like... darting from house to house, moving from hiding spot to hiding spot, rapping on doors. And the calling out is more of a subdued whisper while Rodney tries to find someone else - anyone else - without attracting the attention of whatever that is in the sky, oh God, what even is that in the sky, this is the worst, he is having such a bad day.

"Is anyone there?! Look, this is ridiculous, I have more than enough traumatic dodgeball memories to know for a fact that it is statistically impossible I am the last one on the playing field! So can you just come out or let me in! Actually, just let me in, that-- let's start with that!"

ii. Small Fears - Scavenging/Around town - ota

It's been a long day and he's tired. And angry. And very hungry.

Rodney stops outside one of the houses to catch his breath because moving around town is starting to tire him out. The list is getting longer, too, because he's also thirsty, he's terrified and he's in a very bad mood. Plus, it's getting late and the long and creepy shadows get even longer and creepier.

And their hiding spots look more and more unsafe to him.

"Have you noticed that these houses actually suck?"

He knocks against a wall and it sounds... odd. Almost like cardbord.

"That's just great. What is that going to do against the Big Bad Wolf in the sky, huh? They're gonna blow it to pieces and we're gonna die like the stupid piglets. Except they didn't die. Because they had a house that was made out of stone. This is not stone."

iii. "... and then I was eaten by a whale." - ota cw: thalassophobia, threat of catastrophe, drowning, sea monster
(more details on Rodney's nightmare room here)

Why does he go in there? He will never know.

Maybe it is the supernatural pull of having found 'his' door. Maybe it is the desperate hope of there maybe something to eat inside. Or maybe it is the giant eldritch abominations reaching from the sky.

Either way, he grabs his companion to pull them through the door to perceived safety... and into darkness.

Into very. Very. Wet darkness and he suddenly wishes he could go back to running from massive hands reaching for people because this here, right now in this moment, is so much worse.

He's drowning. Except he's not. Except he is, he's pretty sure he is because how could he not, and Rodney freezes, his mouth opening in surprise - maybe to scream, probably to scream - and he can feel the water tugging on him, all around him. For a moment he panics, arms windmilling, legs kicking, but it doesn't do much. He almost falls over (how do you fall over in water) because there is no floating and it's strange and wrong and disorienting.

There is just darkness and a sliver of light overhead. There is a street, he thinks he's outside on some street, but everything is flooded. There are people, just walking, unaware of the water, unaware of the darkness, unaware of...

Of something in the water, swimming overhead. Something big.

Something very, very big.

Rodney is aware. Rodney is very aware when it turns to stare down at him and he stares back in utter terror.

And then whatever is up there moves towards them.

Fast.

iv. One Fear - ota

At first he thinks the nanites are acting up.

Then he wishes the nanites were acting up because as existentially terrifying as they are? At least they're tiny machines that he understands and feels safe with.

A lot safer than organic mutations because he is sure that's what this is and he's had enough of those for a lifetime. Except apparently not because colors are spreading, ted, blue and green along the side of his face and his neck which is now covered in pheasant feathers. It actually makes him wish he could take more of his body apart than just his arm and just fix whatever caused this plumage sprawling down his throat.

Whoever he's coming across at ADI is met with a forbidding glare and Rodney pointing back at his own face.

"Okay, first of all, not a word. Second, what is it with this town and animals? I swear, you'd think Beastmaster was in charge of all these Entities."

There is a pause and he scrunches up his face.

"Can feathers be shaved?"

Town Square
Despite the fact that Gloucester—and this world in general—frequently proves relaxing is a bad idea, Eda could really, truly use a distraction. Which means she finds herself at the little festival, doing her best to enjoy the atmosphere. Nothing seems off yet, after all.

A part of her still misses Bumble Gum, even if she wouldn’t risk their food again. But it’s probably just as well that none of the offerings from the food carts here appear to be striking the humans as strange; it’s partly because of that she can be found trying the various seafood options.

Or perhaps you’ll find her haggling over a piece of jewelry she likes—or, more likely, thinks someone she knows would like.

Small Fears
It isn’t a sound that makes Eda’s ears prick up suddenly so much as a lack of sound. It takes her a moment to realise the background hum of the city and the festival that she’d almost begun to tune out is missing.

And just like that, she realises she shouldn’t have let herself relax to begin with. She looks around the newly empty street, instantly on high alert. A growl rises in the back of her throat, half wary and half frustrated. Couldn’t she have one nice day out?

i. - tinies only
Eventually, Eda’s spent the better part of an hour searching for people, and while she’s had a depressing lack of luck, she’s also noticed some other strange things.

The sky is the obvious one, though she’s not quite sure what to make of it. But the rest is somehow what’s actually weirder. The lack of proper details on the buildings, for one. The food, for another.

She picks up an apple, or what looks roughly like one, from an unattended cart, tossing it up and down a couple of times idly. Just to be sure, she tries biting into it. Yep, that’s definitely plastic. And not even plastic with a good texture. She’s not sure what else she expected.

ii. - tinies only
At some point, Eda spots someone she hasn’t run into yet. There’s a sense of relief, regardless of who it is—not that she’d wish being here on anyone else. Still, maybe together they’ll be able to figure something out.

But the relief doesn’t last long, and she doesn’t even get a chance to say hello to them.

A huge, shadowy hand reaches down from the sky, not towards Eda but towards whoever she’d just spotted. Without stopping to think she darts out of cover to grab them, pulling them out of the way.

iii.
As wary as Eda is of the looming shadow creatures, staying inside doesn’t appear to be getting anyone anywhere. They need to figure out what’s going on here, before they spend any longer without food.

It’s this desire to figure things out that finds Eda having climbed onto the roof of the clocktower, peering up into the shifting fog. The building is holding her weight, but she can’t help noticing it really doesn’t feel as sturdy as it ought to.

She’s seriously considering just… trying to see how far she can fly. What could go wrong?

Small Nightmares - tinies only
cw: rot/fungus, potential animal attacks, potential possession/body horror

Eda isn’t prepared for what happens when she steps through a doorway into what’s meant to be the library. Everything in this place has been… oddly mundane, in a plasticky sort of way. The walls falling away is new, the bland scenery suddenly replaced with something far more organic.

Despite the sudden shift, there’s something almost preferable about the forest she finds herself in. Nature is infinitely more comfortable than the oddly sterile version of Gloucester. And the trees look familiar, nostalgic—the red leaves of the Boiling Isles as opposed to the green of the Human Realm.

She takes a deep breath of the rich forest air, a stark change from the faint smell of craft paint and glue. It's tinged with a note of decay that isn't unpleasant… at first.

It quickly becomes hard to ignore, followed by wet crumbling sounds. She hears trees shift, branches creak and fall, before she finally sees the creeping rot. Sickly green fungus, or something similar but wrong. A tide of decay consuming everything it touches, inch by inch.

It may or may not actually look precisely like the corruption spread by Emperor Belos, but it certainly looks like what her own mind had conjured when she’d been told about it.

Which is enough to send her scrambling back, and pulling any companion she has with her. She’s not sure how real this is, but she doesn’t want to find out by touching it.

Retreating sends her further into the trees, even as they seem to press closer together. It’s surprisingly easy to put some distance between herself and the corruption, at least at first. Unfortunately, there’s no time to rest before it’s clear there are other problems. The ground trembles with heavy footsteps as something begins to stalk closer, and Eda tenses, listening.

The scrape of talons. The rustle of feathers.

It's not hard for her to make a guess at what's waiting for her in the trees, and if nothing else she's prepared.

Because… is that all they've got?

The owlbeast is a cheap trick. One this place has used before. Not to mention one that's starting to lose its sting.

The problem with recurring nightmares is that anything can start to feel routine, given enough time.

And besides. She knows where the owlbeast actually is, the version that matters. She can feel it in the back of her mind, on her side, bristling warily in much the same way she is.

Or maybe it's bristling because it's noticed something Eda hasn't.

Wildcard
Surprise me or hit me up at

badgirlcoven or strixoid on discord!

Small Fears

A)-Open to non-tiny
Raine wasn't expecting Bonnie’s to be so… empty? It was mid-afternoon, and they'd gone home to grab something. They hadn't thought much of the lack of people around the building, as most people had gone to work, or to look at the new square. But outside of the building felt off too, both literally and physically. The sky is dark, and shadowy, and when Raine stepped out and their heel dug in, that the stairs felt.. soft. The handrails too, seemed to be made of something strange..

Paper clips? Bonnie’s hadn't ever been the most prestigious of living situations, but..

The city of Gloucester isn't much better, either. Plastic sidewalks and storefronts that seem quite unsettling now because of how empty they are. And how wrong they were, now built out of something foreign.

Raine might call out once or twice, but they're very afraid that whatever made the others disappear-and the things in the shadows- might come for them. Make them disappear too.

B)(More details on Raine’s tiny house here
In trying to find anyone in the now-empty, strangely constructed Gloucester, Raine comes across a house, or rather a cottage. A cottage that bore a large, green stained glass window that bore a symbol that strikes fear in Raine’s heart:

The Plant Coven’s symbol.

They want to run away, they want to hide from it more than anything else in this place, but as they back away, the vines that wrap around their ankles and pull them off their feet.

The first thing to hit Raine is the damp, earthy smell of wherever they'd been pulled into, and the humid warmth against their skin. The second, is the fact that Raine can't see, but they can hear something in the dark, that almost sounds like whispering- and whoever they're with can certainly hear it too.

Raine squints at what they can make out of their surroundings, which is not much aside from the spotlight that shone down on them. It also means their glasses, and their violin and bow are somewhere else in the dark, and as they begin to frantically search for all three items.

“I can't see. I- where are my glasses?!”

The muttering seems to rise as they do, becoming more tense, more frustrated until someone, from the darkness, begins to heckle them.

Do something funnier!” The voice calls out, and the seemingly disembodied rest of the audience laughs. Raine freezes, and their face turns a deep shade of embarrassed red. Was the spotlight suddenly too hot? Or was the room ice cold? They’re scrambling around the floor, spotlight following as they struggle to find their glasses.

C)
(TW: loss of autonomy, manipulation, will update if more arise)

Raine stands, alone in the topmost room of the house, facing the stained glass window. Raine stands in the center of the room, in the center of the sickly green and pink light that filtered through the window. They expertly play a song on their violin, performing for their unseen audience, for the voice that has gripped their mind and crowned them with a wreath of obedience. Their posture is different, more relaxed yet upright at the same time. For those that know them well, they're aware of how unusual this is. For those that don't, aside from the violin playing, nothing seems off until they turn towards their new audience members.

“Oh. I'm relieved to see a familiar face. Are you here for the show?”

D) (For edalyn)
(TW: loss of autonomy, manipulation, will update if more arise.)

Raine turns towards Eda, and their expression sours.

“Eda…” They stare up at her from their violin for a moment before they lower it enough to face Eda. “I thought I told you. I work for the Emperor. Are you trying to get caught?”

Edited 2023-09-25 20:16 (UTC)

Big Fears
It doesn't take Rogers long to go from intrigued by the little town to horrified. He can see the little figures running around, after all, and he knows for a fact there are people missing. He notices that some of those figures bear an uncanny resemblance to those people. He also notices there's a timer counting down, and those are never good.

The first day, he absolutely tries to climb up into the model and reach for his friends — and in the chaos that ensues, trying to scoop up the running figures, he slips and elbows one of the buildings, bringing it down. At the same instant, a bar nearby in real-world Gloucester suddenly and inexplicably collapses with a rumble that can be heard for blocks.

The sound and ensuing sirens distract him; Rogers hates to abandon the tiny people but they're clearly running form him, so he slides down out of the model to go running to help. You might find him trying to help the police and fire departments make sure everyone got out and that any fires are contained, but he doesn't have any authority here and eventually he's shooed to the sidelines with the rest of the onlookers. Then, you can find him staring, hollow-eyed, at the rubble, at the exact way it crumbled, at the buildings around it as he realizes with a horrible, horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that this is the building he'd knocked over in the model.

He doesn't sleep at all that night, staying up in his room in the house he shares with Winter, Yelena, and Martin (just Yelena and Martin, right now), practicing his writing in tiny, cramped letters as he composes a message to the tiny people of the tiny town. He tries not to address it only to Winter, because everyone there needs saving, but admittedly, that one person is at the forefront of his mind.

Climbing up into the model the next day and setting the card oh-so-carefully against a building without knocking anything over is successful, but that's as far as his success goes. If the tiny people see his card, they either can't read it or can't understand it or maybe even can't act upon it. So he spends the day crawling around under the model — carefully! He doesn't dare knock anything else over, doesn't even want to think too hard about what he did, he knows it was him — to no avail.

He doesn't sleep again, but by the next morning, with the counter still counting down, he's got a card with a little diagram on it, trying to show that the hands are friendly, that they're here to help, and a prayer that this time, it will work.

Otherwise he's going to get desperate, and desperation is not a good look on him.

[OOC: Feel free to join him at any part in this adventure: climbing around the model, trying to scoop up tinies, standing horror-stricken at the building collapse he caused. Or feel free to catch him around town or in the off-campus house he now shares with Yelena and Martin! He might even spend just a little while skulking around the ADI campus, trying to notice whether it seems a little more lightly populated than usual and/or catching people he knows and asking if there have been any disappearances. Let me know if you'd like a specific starter!

I. Fearless - September 16
For the first few hours, the festivities in the new town square seem like they might actually manage to go off without any new, horrible hitches. Yelena lingers for a while, browsing the booths with a veteran thrifter's apparent casualness and a sharp eye kept out for anything warped and strange, anything that doesn't belong. If she encounters anyone familiar, she'll greet them with a quick smile, nose crinkling in apparent amusement, and a, "Find anything interesting?"

It's early afternoon when she heads away from the park, a couple of pretzels in hand, and heads off to find one of her fellow former-ADI operatives on what they are not, technically, calling a patrol.

II. Big Fears - September 16-19
a. It's a little later in the day that she returns to the town square. Winter hadn't made their meeting, which isn't like him. He also hadn't answered her texts, or her last ditch attempt to call him, which is even less like him. And she can't find the signal from his tracker. The thought that he might be gone, vanished like so many others, is a hard knot of dread in the pit of her stomach, and maybe it's unreasonable to suspect the festival, or the miniature art installation, of being the cause, but she can't remember the last time there was a notable event in the city that hadn't come along with some strange new horror.

It probably says something about her that the first glimpse of a miniature person running through the streets of the replica town - and bolting when she leans down to get a closer look - is a relief. If it does, she doesn't care to examine it.

b. (communication attempts)
Yelena learns pretty quickly that speaking to the people who appear to be trapped in the tiny down doesn't help - whether it's some twisted bit of magic, or simply the fact that the sudden difference in size makes her far too loud, like an earthquake trying to speak, they don't seem to understand her.

She tries writing next, tearing a page from her notebook and writing a quick, neat message: This is Yelena. We're trying to get you out. How many people are trapped in there? She leaves it propped against one of the buildings on the outskirts of the tiny town.

Later, there's a second note, left beside a tumble of slivers of sidewalk chalk that must look like boulders in the yard of a particular house on Lark Street. It's nearly identical to the first one, with one added line: Write on the walls.

No luck. She waits, watching, until well after dark, then leaves a couple of caches of food - bottlecaps full of water, a handfull of trail mix - at a few points in town. She can't be certain it's needed - perhaps they tiny town, from the inside, is real, its stores stocked with actual food, though from her vantage point everything is wood and cardboard and plastic. She can be even less certain that anyone will take advantage of the supplies. She'd certainly be wary, in their position.

The next day, she returns with a pair of laser pointers, the sort one might use to entertain a cat. She sets one carefully in the middle of a street, cap pried off the button so a little pressure will allow it to trigger. The second, she uses herself, so that anyone in the tiny town might come across what looks like an enormous red spotlight, pulsing in a noticeable rhythm.

Do you know morse code? If so, that rhythm works out to be: If you can understand me, respond.

III. One Fear - September 22-23
a. closed to housemates (cw: transformation, body horror)
There's been a few days of relative peace - a few days of one of her housemates slinking around like a ghost, of tamping down the urge to herd everyone she cares about into a car with a cattle prod if she has to, and drive as far from this horrible fucking cursed town as possible - so it's about time for something else to go wrong.

She's just wrapping up a call with a client when the pain starts, a throbbing in her lower back that swiftly escalates in intensity. She manages to log off, forcing her voice to remain neutral through her goodbyes, before the next jolt of pain doubles her over, and she tumbles off her chair with one hand clamped over her mouth, struggling not to be sick. It feels like her spine is exploding in slow motion, and she has vivid mental images of her skeleton crawling free and wreaking havoc in the town, followed by the half-delirious thought that it's a month too early for that particular sort of bullshit.

The pain goes on for what feels like hours, and it's only when it's finally, slowly begun to abate that she registers the odd tickle along the back of one of her legs. She reaches down her back, and encounters...fur. Tugging on it results in a muted pulse of agony along over-stressed nerves, but she manages to work it carefully above her waistband.

'It' apparently being a fox's tail, russett tipped with white. It's ludicrous enough that she stalks out of her room to ask the first person she encounters, "Are you seeing this?"

Please don't be seeing this.

b. ota (cw: stalking, potential for violence)
Other people are definitely seeing this.

Yelena has switched her jeans for a knee-length skirt, the better to not confine her still-tender tail, and set out into town in search of answers. Unfortunately, what she's found so far has mostly been trouble.

At the moment, that trouble comes in the form of a certainty that someone is following her. It isn't the first time, and there's a man in the emergency room with a badly dislocated elbow who can attest to the fact that catching her may not be the best outcome, but she's grown more and more wary over the last couple of hours, certain anyone who glimpses the swish of a tail she can't quite control is hostile. An enemy. A predator.

And so she ducks into one of the more tangled networks of alleys winding through the city. Follow at your own risk.

c. closed to other prey (cw: self(?)-mutilation, threat of gun violence)
It's late, after midnight, and there's a flicker of light between the boards covering one of the windows of one of the abandoned houses along the outskirts of town. If anyone should happen to come inside, driven by curiousity, perhaps, or looking for somewhere to go to ground to evade friends and neighbours turned hunters, the door around the back of the building is unlocked.

There's no way to navigate through the building without the creak of the decaying floorboards giving their presence away, and perhaps that's deliberate. Come around a bend in the hall toward the source of the flickering light, and any visitor will find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun held by a compact blonde woman, dressed in a tank-top and unerwear, a fox's bottlebrush tail pressed against the back of her legs in clear agitation. Yelena's expression is chillingly blank, and only softens a little when she spies whatever animal feature her company might be trying - or unable - to hide.

She lowers the gun, and exhales something like a sigh. "So it is spreading. Is anyone following you?"

The astute might make out the tarp behind her, with a neat stack of bandages and bottles that suggests she raided a pharmacy before coming here. The pharmacy probably didn't supply the set of knives, including a large, heavy cleaver she was apparently midway through sterilizing when she was interrupted, though.

[ Big Fears ]

The replica of Gloucester doesn't even register at first. Hunter passes it at least three times while frantically searching for Eda and Raine. He refuses to accept that they've just vanished, even after his texts and calls go unanswered.

It's only by chance that he hears that there are people in the tiny town. And peering in, sure enough, there they are! Only they don't seem to understand when he calls out to them, and they run when he tries to reach for them.

Which leaves him staring hard at the model. At one point, he takes Flapjack between his hands and holds him over the model to determine if the little red cardinal will fit in the small streets without causing damage.

"...maybe?"

[ One Fear ]
(cw: bood, mentions of possession, child abuse, body horror)

It's not the first time antlers have erupted from his head.

The first time had hardly registered - just one more awful thing in a long list of awful things. Belos's possession had leached into his skin and bones and left a roadmap of scars behind - but thankfully the antlers had not remained.

This time, the pain is sudden and sharp and terribly familiar, but not much else is. The blood is new, staining his blond hair. There's bone instead of sickly green rot. The antlers aren't very impressive - kind of small and curved, but definitely too big to throw a hood or hat over.

Which sucks, because it makes it that much harder to hide from the people suddenly determined to chase him down. He's not used to being on this side of things.

So he runs and tosses himself into the first shadowy hiding spot he can find, holding his breath so he doesn't breathe too loud.

[ Wildcard ]
Surprise me! Or don't (

deadtea)

I. As Below - For the Small Fears (Open to Tiny Town Folk)
cw: megalophobia, shadowy horrors, impending (cheese) doom

[ooc: Tiny Town folk, will post a tiny exploratory atmospheric adventure responses. Feel free to pm/dm questions!]

descent
One day it is simply there. A shadow. Dark, forboding. Something that lingers in a persistent, inexorable manner that might be recognized as distinct. It blots out what little light filters through the fog, turning a particular block of the town dark... even pitch black in some places. Close to the town's true 'center'. Perhaps surprisingly close. But keeping the central point almost reassuringly 'safe'.

...as if something descends...

Yes, the shadow shifts and flickers but grows over time. Hours? Days? Such would depend on one's perspective, how long one watches. How those giant shapes from beyond the fog move in their minds.

landing
It comes with a soft rumble felt a few more blocks away. But those watching might see something different. Thick fog often dulls colors and this may be no exception; something that replaces the shadow as it comes through the fog. Something gray. Gray with red tones, slowly gaining saturation as time and size goes on. If some of the watchers were able to bring light, that red would become ever more vibrant when a sheen that suggests a harsh shine. Metal? Perhaps.

...it keeps coming...

With a small vibration through the earth, it lands. Odd that it doesn't dent the road with such obvious weight, perhaps. It rests there, an strange monolith with curvature.

But then the noise it makes. A PoPPiNG, SnAP-CRaCK. Something curved, with strange, shiny metalic surface settling to its new home? Or something more terrible?

II. So Above - Meanwhile, Big Fears

Elidibus can be often found in the new town square. Like many of the off-worlders who have heard the tales and witnessed myriad attempts to help those trapped in the tiny town, he was here to see what may be done. What may be sensed, learned. Of course it wasn't just curiosity.

A. Say Cheese

It's odd that civilians aren't paying any attention when he lingers on the side of the town model. Honestly it was worth a little magic to.... harmonize just a bit. This won't affect off-worlders or those ADI personnel who aren't already dissuaded by whatever keeps them from noticing the flurry of tiny figures moving around.

In his hand is a small Babybel cheese, still wrapped because this is, for the moment, a test. Elidibus carefully begins lowering it onto the model, while sometimes looking intently at a particular direction in the real Glouchester.

One may notice this is in the direction of where he can reach, hovering- quite literally, because he's an uncomfortably short person and tiptoes won't do- near the center of the model.

B. Trap

It's not as if there aren't other solutions, yes? Elidibus is inclined to not use magic to capture those within and try to win them free of the model. Too risky, too.. intricate, detailed work for what he can bring to bear these days. The model town is likely a maze of efforts to trap and draw out the tiny figures by now.

"Yet the difficulty stems in being unable to affect the buildings themselves, lest it causes damage to Glouchester," he might say to someone nearby. "While they are free to enter those buildings and hide. Have you found aught which is effective?"

III. One Fear - Feathers
cw: body horror, predation, compulsions

Weakened. Vulnerable. They were feelings Elidibus has become keenly aware of since his arrival on Earth. It came in particularly sharp relief during the last few days. To make a proper, permanent limb for Sheppard? As everything, it took far more than a snap of the fingers or an afterthought. With Emet-Selch's aid, neither had completely drained themselves. It had been for a good, well-reasoned cause.

Sheppard's mutated crab arm was worth the cost, though. And there were other benefits to look forward to. Yes. Well worth. There was so much to learn and no stone should remain unturned. Or was getting the crab arm a personal benefit and the creation magick the true aim? Ah, no matter. Elidibus would make use of it all.

But it has lead to limited means to escape pursuit.

Feathers. Raven and cream feathers- some even a gradient between the two- mix with silver hair. Not as ornaments, but growing out, replacing? It's hard to tell, but they are real. Glimpses of his hands show similar patterns of downy fluff. One may presume there is more. But white robes cover a lot. When he had first felt the unease and approach of danger, he had teleported away from the dubious safety of his apartment to someplace, anyplace else and at home he wore his robe.

He knows something is wrong with his feet. The shoes are... uncomfortable. The changes being wrought have had stabs of pain- feathers itch, a sense of... ache in his bones. Something undefinable about his calves. But not yet worth removing and checking. Not when there's something coming. The worst part is how Elidibus knows his behavior is irrational. He still has the capacity and intelligence he was born with. But the impulse was undeniable. Predators were near. And he... he would be hunted. Cornered. Inevitably...

"I know you're there." a predator might hear him say aloud at one point in his stunted efforts at flight. Like a bird whose wings will not lift him to safety.

But should he stumble across other prey instead? There is nothing but silence at first. A glance at his fellow and a stillness that belongs to a bird on alert, waiting for any sign to give way to a hunter.

Edited 2023-09-28 07:43 (UTC)

I. LITTLE TOWN (BIG FEARS.)

[Her mind is screaming. It takes every ounce of willpower to not blow up, to not level this shitty little town for daring to take her away again. She's staring at the miniature town, where all her magic is pointing her towards. The Desolation itself might as well whisper into her ear. Or the Beholding. They're both rather fond of her.]

She's in there. They'll all in there. I think... [There's something extra grave and almost hostile about her expression and the way she scratches her chin in thought. Dangerous. Always so very dangerous.]

I have a plan.

[If you're in the town itself, you might hear her voice even. It calls, echoing around the skulls of the people trapped within. Nobody else can hear.

Can you hear me? Where is she?

Where, where, where, where, where.]

II. ONE FEAR (BIG FEARS.)

[It brings back some memories. It's a month early to be a proper halloween party, but the tufts of fur in her ears, the sharp canines in her mouth, the way her fingernails have turned into claws...

A hunter. Yes. It suits her. Far better than prey.

She doesn't go far, looking for her prey. She doesn't fight it as much as she should. She's still itching to hurt someone after what was most dear to her was threatened.

So she'll find her prey - whether they're prey or fellow predator, it makes no difference to her, a meal is a meal - just outside the ADI building, a smile on her lips. My, what big teeth you have.]

It's dangerous to walk home alone these days, you know.

Threaded | Flat

(frozen comment) QUESTIONS AND SIGN UPS

Sheppard | Stargate: Atlantis | OTA + Closed, will match format

Mercy Graves | OC | OTA

martin blackwood | the magnus archives | ota!

Winter | MCU| Open and closed | CW medical torture, memory loss, body horror

Rodney McKay | Stargate: Atlantis | ota

Edalyn Clawthorne | The Owl House | OTA