apocalypsehowooc | Event OOC

Entry tags:

!event

Event OOC - Fan Service

Fan Service - 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!

➥ We're Live: 16 December
➥ In the Hive: 16 December
➥ Lights Out: 17-25 December
➥ It Sees You: 20-31 December

➥ We're Live
(cw: Insects/centipedes, body horror, manipulation)

James Griffin's biggest fans have a gift for him! A real, live, supernatural happening in a spooky place captured on film. A should-be-dead VTuber, LovelyRen, is here to give people a taste of what magic really is. She'll be sending swarms of insects after the fans, and filming their suffering while she waits for someone to come to the rescue. Such as it is. Characters will have the chance to talk with Ren, if they'd like. She'll happily show them how she's tormenting the fans while they chat.

➥ In the Hive
(cw: insects/swarms, bites, altered mental states/toxic relationship dynamics, body horror, potential for character death)

A rescue mission is on to get the fans out of a terrible situation. Characters will be armed with bug killer poison, gas masks, and any other equipment one might need to handle an infestation. There will be opportunities to save each other and survivors. Those who end up bitten by bugs have the option to experience a mixture of euphoria and terror, followed by an intense desire to backstab one of their companions. Whether that's just preventing them from rescuing someone else or actively trying to get them bitten/poisoned/killed. The effect will only last a few minutes at most, but additional bites may extend the effect.

➥ Lights Out
(cw: voyeurism, scopophobia, mind-control/compulsion, potential for humiliation)

There have been a spate of injuries and deaths connected to holiday decorations: specifically, holiday lights. ADI is sending out groups to investigate this in a number of ways: talking to people who claim to have had experiences with them, talking to shopkeepers about the possible origin of the defective lights, or testing the lights themselves. Being caught in the glow of any of the cursed lights forces one to confess to something horrible or humiliating that they have done/had done to them.

➥ It Sees You
(cw: voyeurism, scopophobia, living dolls)

Someone has decorated ADI headquarters with a bunch of those cute Elf on the Shelf dolls! Except Pam's out on medical leave and no one else is admitting to it... and there's an increasingly prickly feeling of being watched by dead plastic eyes wherever you go. The elves soon spread to characters' homes, though no one ever sees them move. There's only one thing to do: search every shelf and destroy every elf.

A Handy Plotting Form

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For It Sees You, are the elves doing anything in particular to characters? Other than causing the prickling feeling that they're being watched, I mean. Or is it just 'oh these creepy elves are popping up and causing bad feels, let's remove them'.

Also, is removing them easily done? Or will some ill-effect happen upon removing the elf ( or elves )? Will the elves continue to show up in characters homes until the end of December despite how much effort they do or don't put into removing them?

Edited (english is difficult) 2021-12-14 22:04 (UTC)

The elves are watching…always watching. That seems to be the extent of what they do, though, and they're as easily removed and destroyed as any inanimate doll. Choosing not to remove the elves and to allow them to continue watching will result in growing feelings of irrational paranoia.

While the number of elves seems to grow exponentially in the first few days of their appearance, overall there will be a finite number of elves (that is, after a certain point the elf population will decrease if characters are actively destroying them). Surviving elves may continue to relocate into the homes of characters (particularly the homes of those who have something to hide) right up until the end of the event, but players should assume that efforts to round them up and destroy them will be successful by the end of December.

vHey mods, I have a question about the creepy elves! Are there any notable patterns to their movements? Like do they seem like they have a specific goal in mind, other than creepily sneaking into people's rooms? And do they seem drawn to anything in particular? Cursed objects, artifacts etc.

Does reviewing security footage of ADI ever show them moving around when nobody is physically present?

/sneaks in an edit for one more question!
Will Ren be present at the victim rescue mission?

Edited 2021-12-14 22:16 (UTC)

The elves don't seem to actually do anything beyond get into places and watch people–they don't steal or destroy anything (though they may draw mustaches on any photos they find). They do seem to congregate in greatest numbers where there are secrets to be observed, including secure areas at ADI headquarters as well as the homes of characters who have something to hide. They do seem to be particularly drawn to cursed items and characters with powers, as well as characters who tested the Illumination Rite light strands.

Security footage does not show the elves in full motion. When an elf that's on camera relocates, footage may show the elf moving a tiny bit (little enough that there's always plausible deniability that the cause could have been mundane) before the feed seems to glitch out for a moment and then the elf has simply disappeared or appeared. Neil Grace, head of security at ADI, is very upset about this situation and is one of the voices calling most loudly for a company-wide effort to deal with the elves.

Regarding Ren, she will likely be visible in the rescue location to the rescuers who arrive first on the scene. These individuals will witness her breaking apart into a multitude of insects and scuttling away to join the rest of the swarms. Picking out which bugs are Ren and which aren't will be impossible, but maybe if you just kill them ALL, you'll get her? Good luck, team!

Is it possible to catch some of the bugs to bring back to ADI for the science/magic nerds to study? Or is that something people would be expressly told not to do?

What sort ofinjuries and deaths are related to the holiday lights? Is it all normal accidents, just in unusually high volumes, or are there outlandish cases? Also, is there any pattern to the brands of lights involved?

If someone were to specifically set up cameras to record an elf, what would they catch? What about putting something easily-transferrable like chalk or charcoal on an elf's hands and feet - would there be tracks, or markings like someone's moved it?

Anything weird if we dissect an elf, or just the expected stuffing and plastic?

ADI doesn't want those bugs in their offices because of the chance of them getting out and causing havoc. They would request characters not do this. If they do it anyway, they'll be able to find that the bugs seem to be normal when they get them back home and are, in fact, a lot less hostile when removed from the swarms and Ren's influence. They just seem to be bugs.

It's a combination of both volume and oddity. Injuries seem to be a suspicious level of mouth injuries, like people might be hurting themselves in an effort to stay quiet. But there are other things like falling off ladders because it felt like saw something at the corner of their vision that was looking at them. Additional accidents seem not to make sense. People claim they were electrocuted, but show no signs of electrocution. If questioned, they will insist that they know they were electrocuted because they know exactly what that feels like. There are other claims in this vein where people were injured in various ways, but they claim they sustained more serious injuries because they know what it feels like. And they couldn't have just imagined that happening. The only brand involved in these more unusual claims is called Illumination Rite. A Google search would turn up various companies with some variation on that name, but nothing that seems to be a lights company. Stores don't know how they got the lights. They just turned up in their inventory.

Video recordings do not show the elves in full motion. When an elf that's on camera moves, footage may show the elf moving a tiny bit (little enough that there's always plausible deniability that the cause could have been mundane) before the feed seems to glitch out for a moment and then the elf has simply disappeared or appeared. Cameras set up specifically to catch elves in the act are favored targets for elf jump scares, with the elf's face appearing close up to the camera lens before the video glitches out again and the elf disappears somewhere else.

Despite the fact that elves are never observed to get up and walk, putting chalk or coal on an elf's hands and feet will result in little footprints and handprints appearing to show that it walked or climbed to its latest location. The trail sometimes leads all the way back to its previous location, but sometimes the trail fades in and out, particularly when the elf would have had to get through a locked door or another seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

A dissected elf is made of nothing but plastic, felt, and stuffing. The feeling of being watched (and the elf's ability to move to another location and continue its spying once left unobserved) will not go away unless the elf's eyes are destroyed.

Would they explain why they don't want any creepy-crawly souvenirs? (Yelena won't bring bugs home if asked not to regardless of whether or not there's an explanation, so I'm mostly asking from a general IC opinion of operations reasons.)

Yes, they would provide the 'we can't verify 100% these things won't get out and start breeding in the walls to destroy us' explanation!

For characters who are able to sense ambient magic, what is the magical “read” on the elf dolls?

There's a small concentration of eldritch power in each elf doll that has the flavor of a fear Entity, but their auras are difficult to pin down and really look at. Doubt and confusion assail the magical senses...and then it's the elf's turn to get a read on the magic user. They see all of who he is and what he's capable of, and they are absolutely judging him.

For the confessions under the lights, does someone have to consciously remember the thing they're forced to confess, or can it be a lost memory?

I ask, as the player of an amnesiac :)

Also, does the security department have any kind of tracking devices Winter can, uh, borrow? And attach to an elf or three?

Terrible confessions might come out that characters don't consciously remember so long as the thing actually happened to them/because of them. Have fun reconciling this information with your current view of self, amnesiacs one and all!

Security does have trackers! Neil is willing to hand some out to characters who are interested in tracking. As with video, the trackers just seem to glitch out when the elves move. One moment they're one place, the next they're somewhere else.

Oh hi how you doin

Jimothy has a small lineup of good people waiting to kick his tush. After his quick admission of guilt is he getting a stern talking to, getting put in timeout, getting put in the corner with a Dunce hat, or is he free to squirm away to the rescue mission?

Tim will be given the option to help fix the mess he created after a tongue-lashing by Neil Grace, Head of Security. He will be monitored by someone that is fairly well-trusted by ADI if he decides to go, though. You can decide on this with another player, if you'd like him to go. He is absolutely not getting paid for his efforts.

Edited 2021-12-17 02:15 (UTC)

That's rude. This is job security (ba dumps tsshh)

Thank you!

Got a new one:

Has Sable encountered anything manufactured by Illumination Rite before? Or the creepy elf dolls, has she seen anything like them before/does she have any tips for dealing with things like them?

HEADLINE NEWS tie in
New Horizons and Zyrian Steel: is there any tie between him and the making of Illumination Rite lights?
(bonus: how about them and ADI tech, like phone parts, computer chips, the like?)

Sable has never encountered anything like the elves. "That's creepy. Incinerate it," would be her advice there. Illumination Rite will give her some pause as she ponders. It's a familiar name, but she hasn't heard it in a good long while. She recalls that some of the Oculus cult, those devoted to the Eye, had used that name on some cursed items they'd created way, way back when she'd first been starting out. Christmas lights are new, though, and they've been quiet for more than two decades after a failed ritual attempt. She doesn't seem especially concerned and will note that "the Eyes tend to be morons when it comes to anything obvious." She would suggest just destroying the lights to upset them and stymie whatever research they're trying to do..

There's no evidence connecting New Horizons and Zyrian Steel to Illumination Rite. Zyrian has been one of ADI's clients in the past, though, and some ADI tech does bear a New Horizons logo. It's predominantly medical equipment.

Dropping this here because it's related, if, uh, a little belated. If Yelena dug into Ren's sponsors and any production team for her show, would she turn anything interesting up? She's mostly looking for tech or telecom connections, but would flag anything else that turns up, because gosh, after Donna asked about technological sources for October's nightmares, the fact that Ava stole one of the ADI phones and all of a month later Hermy showed up as a prelude to Bugfest '21 seems like one hell of a coincidence.

Yelena would find that Ren was sponsored by a few personal tech firms. Several of which promote app development for young entrepreneurs and one that seems to make a business out of jailbreaking phones and enhancing them in different ways. A number of those, in turn, appear to be connected to… something. She will find what appear to be several shell companies propping up those enterprises. One, in particular, has the name 'Halloween 2.0,' and has a listed chairperson as Ava Song. There does not appear to be an actual living person with this name that one might be able to find in the available searches. Mostly, searching just returns this song.

When did they sign as sponsors?

About a year before Ren Morimoto was known to have 'died.' Notably, this was about the time that there seems to have been the start of a concentrated online harassment campaign against Ren and her vlog.

Yelena will flag this up the chain, in addition to the post I finally got up, oof. Seems like something the higher ups might want to allocate some resources towards chasing to her.

Reyes will take that information gratefully to pass along to Nia and the rest of the management team. This will have an impact on future plot developments. C:

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Event OOC - Fan Service

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