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apocalypsehowooc2022-10-14 11:29 am
apocalypsehowmods) wrote in apocalypsehowooc2022-10-14 11:29 am
Entry tags:
Event OOC - Untimely
Untimely - OOC
Summaries and content warnings for each prompt in the event are provided below. Please pose questions to the designated mod comment, and plot away!
NOTE: Characters who do not experience sleep/dreams ordinarily will still be affected by Ava and her abilities. These are supernaturally-induced sleep/dreams.
➥ Reality Check: 16-25 October
➥ Knead Help: 18-25 October
➥ Never Sleep Again: 20-25 October
➥ Reality Check
(cw: hypersomnia, coma, supernaturally induced metaphysical hunger; psychosomatic pain)
Characters will be given a crash course in lucid dreaming via a seminar put on by Luna, an employee for Copernicus. It seems Zyrian Steel (head of Copernicus, a company that characters have been hearing about more and more as one of ADI's clients and also someone who keeps helping them out) heard about the problem and wants to help. She comes bearing Lucidio Eye Masks that can help characters to get to lucid dreams… provided they also use some of the other techniques she outlines in her seminar on the process. The lucid dreaming practice is intended to take the fight to ADI's enemy, an avatar named Ava, the Lullaby Girl who tormented characters last Halloween with horrific nightmares or dying repeatedly. This year, the dreams have a new twist. They seem to be personalized hellscapes based around the Entity (or Entities if your character dreams different 'domains' over the course of several nights) that would most call to a character or one that would make them most afraid. In either case, characters in these nightmares will feel drawn to that Entity, experience the intense hunger and need for fear that an avatar would. Lucky them, there are others in their new hell domain to terrorize. Will you use your lucid dreaming powers for good to try to dismantle the nightmares and protect others you find? Or will you use the excuse to terrorize others with impunity? ADI higher ups aren't here to see what you're doing, after all, and if you die in a dream… surely you won't die in real life. (Spoilers: You will not die in real life, but characters killed in dreams will wake with severe fatigue and pain and the scars of any injuries they might have sustained in the nightmares.)
➥ Knead Help
(cw: blood, unsanitary food, supernaturally-induced existential dread, supernaturally-induced suicidal thoughts, isolation, dissociation)
The good news: Better Loaf than Never Bakery has been closed to the public, and agents of ADI have managed to break the supernatural seal keeping everyone out of the kitchen. The bad news: the kitchen has been transformed into a vast, bigger-on-the-inside graveyard made of bread. Stepping inside, characters will find themselves separated from their companions as they walk among gravestones that feature the names of the recently dead, as well as their own names and the names of those they love (players are free to have their characters discover gravestones for basically any character, as the appearance of a gravestone in this prompt is not a reliable indicator of whether that person is actually dead or going to die). Characters who are alone will feel supernaturally-imposed existential dread and may find themselves losing the will to do anything other than lay down on their own grave and die. Characters may find one another and snap each other back to reality by sharing any strong emotion other than fear and sadness, such as love, anger, joy, or disgust.
Only one team of three characters will be able to interact directly with Bryn. Please respond to the RNG signup comment below if you would like your character to be part of the Bryn encounter. The actions of those three characters will dictate the outcome of this prompt with potential benefits or consequences in future months. We ask that players who sign up commit to prioritizing this NPC thread to allow events to conclude in a timely fashion, and that players with multiple characters choose one character to enter into the RNG lottery. ICly, the team may enter together, or they may come across each other in the graveyard, so characters do not need to have previously established CR with other members of the team. All entries must be submitted by October 15 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.
➥ Never Sleep Again
(cw: child death, body horror, violence, potential injury or character death, nightmare dream logic)
Through lucid dreaming, Characters will be able to finally confront Ava in their nightmares, and fight her either through the dream or in the real world. Ava is fractured, she will need to be killed across several arenas for the effect to take and the most effective way is through pulling the pieces into the waking world. Fights can be played out as an NPC thread on the event post itself with injuries likely and death possible. With enough pieces successfully killed, Ava will be killed as well. Characters are welcome to attempt to reason with Ava, as well, but with pieces of her being killed by others at ADI, her ultimate fate is sealed.
A Handy Plotting Form
NOTE: Characters who do not experience sleep/dreams ordinarily will still be affected by Ava and her abilities. These are supernaturally-induced sleep/dreams.
➥ Reality Check: 16-25 October
➥ Knead Help: 18-25 October
➥ Never Sleep Again: 20-25 October
➥ Reality Check
(cw: hypersomnia, coma, supernaturally induced metaphysical hunger; psychosomatic pain)
Characters will be given a crash course in lucid dreaming via a seminar put on by Luna, an employee for Copernicus. It seems Zyrian Steel (head of Copernicus, a company that characters have been hearing about more and more as one of ADI's clients and also someone who keeps helping them out) heard about the problem and wants to help. She comes bearing Lucidio Eye Masks that can help characters to get to lucid dreams… provided they also use some of the other techniques she outlines in her seminar on the process. The lucid dreaming practice is intended to take the fight to ADI's enemy, an avatar named Ava, the Lullaby Girl who tormented characters last Halloween with horrific nightmares or dying repeatedly. This year, the dreams have a new twist. They seem to be personalized hellscapes based around the Entity (or Entities if your character dreams different 'domains' over the course of several nights) that would most call to a character or one that would make them most afraid. In either case, characters in these nightmares will feel drawn to that Entity, experience the intense hunger and need for fear that an avatar would. Lucky them, there are others in their new hell domain to terrorize. Will you use your lucid dreaming powers for good to try to dismantle the nightmares and protect others you find? Or will you use the excuse to terrorize others with impunity? ADI higher ups aren't here to see what you're doing, after all, and if you die in a dream… surely you won't die in real life. (Spoilers: You will not die in real life, but characters killed in dreams will wake with severe fatigue and pain and the scars of any injuries they might have sustained in the nightmares.)
➥ Knead Help
(cw: blood, unsanitary food, supernaturally-induced existential dread, supernaturally-induced suicidal thoughts, isolation, dissociation)
The good news: Better Loaf than Never Bakery has been closed to the public, and agents of ADI have managed to break the supernatural seal keeping everyone out of the kitchen. The bad news: the kitchen has been transformed into a vast, bigger-on-the-inside graveyard made of bread. Stepping inside, characters will find themselves separated from their companions as they walk among gravestones that feature the names of the recently dead, as well as their own names and the names of those they love (players are free to have their characters discover gravestones for basically any character, as the appearance of a gravestone in this prompt is not a reliable indicator of whether that person is actually dead or going to die). Characters who are alone will feel supernaturally-imposed existential dread and may find themselves losing the will to do anything other than lay down on their own grave and die. Characters may find one another and snap each other back to reality by sharing any strong emotion other than fear and sadness, such as love, anger, joy, or disgust.
Only one team of three characters will be able to interact directly with Bryn. Please respond to the RNG signup comment below if you would like your character to be part of the Bryn encounter. The actions of those three characters will dictate the outcome of this prompt with potential benefits or consequences in future months. We ask that players who sign up commit to prioritizing this NPC thread to allow events to conclude in a timely fashion, and that players with multiple characters choose one character to enter into the RNG lottery. ICly, the team may enter together, or they may come across each other in the graveyard, so characters do not need to have previously established CR with other members of the team. All entries must be submitted by October 15 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.
➥ Never Sleep Again
(cw: child death, body horror, violence, potential injury or character death, nightmare dream logic)
Through lucid dreaming, Characters will be able to finally confront Ava in their nightmares, and fight her either through the dream or in the real world. Ava is fractured, she will need to be killed across several arenas for the effect to take and the most effective way is through pulling the pieces into the waking world. Fights can be played out as an NPC thread on the event post itself with injuries likely and death possible. With enough pieces successfully killed, Ava will be killed as well. Characters are welcome to attempt to reason with Ava, as well, but with pieces of her being killed by others at ADI, her ultimate fate is sealed.
QUESTIONS
RNG SIGNUP - Bryn Encounter
Each player may enter one character into the RNG signup.
All entries must be submitted by October 15 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.
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→ Housing: ADI A4
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: Security
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: Katrina's nightmares will revolve around the Extinction. There will be siren corpses, sirens in tanks, sirens being experimented on (dead or alive), sirens kept as "pets" for the rich to show off in private tanks... just awful things, everything Katrina fears the most. Given how recent events and threads have been affecting her, she... might just go around terrorizing people in the dream, until she remembers she's feeding the thing that wants to bring about this destruction. Then she'll fight hard to get out.
→ KNEAD HELP: Not putting her in the rng, but it would fit with her arc if she experiences exhaustion in regard to her quest to save her people. It's just so much work, she's only one person...!
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: She is always down to fight! I'll tag around for this one.
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→ Housing: D3, ADI
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: Investigations/research
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: I'm figuring out exactly what imagery I'll give their Hunt domains, but I want the possibility of running into Eda, the Owl Beast itself, or Monster-Eda. (In canon, they vary between separate entities and not in her mindscape/nightmares.
Eda will be doing her best to stay in control of herself and help people, dismantle the nightmares etc, but will be fighting the urge to transform and hunt them instead.
The Owl Beast by itself will be hunting, and is the least easy to reason with as an animal. (Not necessarily impossible, the characters who had positive interactions with it back in Public Eye might have some luck in particular. And on the other side of things, it might be up for some pack tactics with other Hunt-aligned characters.)
Eda will also be trying to make it behave, so they might be separate-but-in-the-same-location, with her doing her best to keep it from eating anyone.
→ KNEAD HELP: Depends on the RNG. If she's not doing the encounter, she'll just be exploring, and I'm up for both having her need a rescue and having her help others!
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: Eda's feeling iffy about the ADI right now, and doesn't love the idea of hurting a kid, either. She'll try to reason with Ava first, but probably end up fighting if it's clear that doesn't work.
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→ Housing: don't think that's nailed down yet, we're super new.
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: likewise haven't established that yet, will be on it ASAP.
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: God, do I love me a fucky dream sequence. I'm wholly down for this one, but I'll probably have to put some groundwork in to get Wake to the point of touching this setup with a ten-foot pole: she's kind of reeling, and this reeks of wizard bullshit. (Fortunately, once she arrives at the point of believing that the wizard bullshit is in overall alignment with her goals for the moment, she probably will commit to it. That's kind of been a theme.) I'll be putting up a log post ASAP to try and move her towards that point as well as getting some connections established. (The nightmare prompt from the most recent TDM has distinct possibilities, and I may revisit that.)
Wake's magical mystery dreamscape tour is definitely going to be a WHOLE Time, probably multi-domain because complex trauma is like that. Ideas springing to mind: Corruption (pregnancy horror; if you've read Ht9 and remember how gnarly alt-Canaan House ended up getting... yeah); Extinction (motherfucking John Gaius); Slaughter (her entire universe is one giant war zone); Buried? (getting kicked out of an airlock in a pressure suit has to be either that or Vast, and the Buried just feels chewier to me right now); Hunt (this is the one that's going to feel unequivocally good and righteous and sexy to her, so that's fun).
→ KNEAD HELP: Probably going to more or less sit this one out while I get her established. There's some awesome stuff there to play with, but the lucid dreaming plot is SO perfect for what I want to do with her, so that's where I'll be focusing.
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: ... I mean. It's not like Wake has any inherent compunctions about killing an evil magic kid as and when that's what it takes? She's not going to be fine about it after, though.
no subject
Re: RNG SIGNUP - Bryn Encounter
Re: QUESTIONS
no subject
→ Housing: ADI
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: Security
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: Provided he can be taught lucid dreaming without the eye mask (because Winter and things on his face do not mix well), I'll focus here. Might yoink the doppleganger concept into his nightmarescape, because seeing himself as he was under HYDRA, going back to that personless self, is high up on his list of Stranger-related scariness, but also maybe a version of Original Bucky Barnes for people to run into because that also scares him. He is absolutely going to resist the pull because he has a high stubbornness stat and also knows what this feels like. I'm not sure if one who is actually already claimed by an entity CAN do multiple entity nightmares, but if I go that route, maybe Web to showcase control words.
→ KNEAD HELP: Not going to really participate in this one with Winter, as I'm going to focus Freddie there instead.
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: Again provided one can do this without the eye masks, Winter is going hunting for Ava! I'm welcoming teammates here, because he's also smart enough not to go alone.
→ Housing: Bonnie's
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: Library
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: Frederick has no brain and thus does not dream. Handy excuse for me to not have him super involved, and be able to focus on the bread plotline.
→ KNEAD HELP: While everyone else is sleeping and fighting in their dreams, he'll be exploring the bread place! Signed up for the big RNG, but otherwise just prowling around being a creepy but friendly skeleton man.
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: NA, he wouldn't be very useful here anyway
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→ Housing: Apartment Block C - C1
→ What ADI Department(s) Does the Character Work In?: Security
→ Permissions: HERE
→ REALITY CHECK: Manji is pulled towards the corruption and I'm going to take this dream opportunity to play on it in a more conceptional sense than the usual bugs/rot. Playing more with time and how those pull into Manji's dream will be watching the world around them change rapidly. Forced to watch as their loved ones grow old and die while they remain the same. The feeling of their own skills and abilities crumble around them. Are you usually a fast runner? You may start that way, but then you'll notice that you're slowing down. Things just don't work quite right anymore.
With how out of place Manji feels day-to-day in this city, along with his mounting frustrations of being no closer to getting home he may just go ahead and give in to causing fear. Seeing as it will feel so good. Let someone else feel what he feels almost every day and finally feel a little fuller because of it. Having someone help snap him back to attention/reality is possible if anyone would be interested in doing that.
For those who OOC are alright with more gross things I may also throw in a section with the magical worms that keep Manji's body alive. What I most want to focus on is that sense of fear and loss of things growing old and useless along with the feeling of helplessness that comes with it.
→ KNEAD HELP: I'm thinking of having Manji go through the graves and see the names of people he already assumes have died because of how far back in the past he's from. Even if the dates are 'fresh' he's starting to loose hope of seeing those people alive. So the dread will still be there as he comes face to face with what he fears. He's too stubborn to completely lay down and die (it's sort of how the story of Blade of the Immortal begins) and he may have just enough rage to share to help someone get out of their own grave if needed.
→ NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: Manji would like to speak to Ava more than fight her. While he's still willing to fight on the side of ADI; he doesn't trust they're given all the information. For good reasons or not he can't trust them and would like to know what Ava thinks about them. He won't be stopping anyone from trying to kill her, but unless directly attacked I don't think he'll be taking part in any effort to kill a portion of her.
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