TEST DRIVE MEME 005

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:

Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.

THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the any event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.

CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: spiders, aphrodisiac and truth serum effects, public nudity, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, social pressure, and animal sacrifice.

If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.

FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS

IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE

The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin.

Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.

You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards reemerging after a long winter. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, will lead people towards the first signs of civilisation, the cabins of those who choose to live beyond Rubilyskoye's formidable walls.

In the forest, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike.

Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.

This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.

When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.

breaking and entering

If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.

SETTING: CRIME

Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. It's already full of people who appeared in the village just as you did today.

finding roommates

Don't spend too much time asking questions in the common areas. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. Maybe you'll get lucky and run into someone who has decided to move out? (Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements; at this point, many characters have used activity rewards to move to accomodation outside the boarding house.)

Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with a breakfast of thick grain porridge and caramelised bananas from the new peaks; these NPCs can also answer any questions about the situation. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. Gossip about new arrivals spreads quickly, and Rubeans who run businesses or train trades are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing, being offered work, asking questions over breakfast, or staking your claim on a bedroom!

HEARTS FESTIVAL

New arrivals to Rubilykskoye will find themselves strongly encouraged to participate in the current zadza purging festival, and will be assigned either a collar in leather or iron based on their Niez or Wilk mark, or a wrist-strap or manacle that suits the attachment of a leash for those with a Diabel or Skala mark.

Characters are encouraged to embrace this temporary designation as a sign that they will be good citizens; those who object or ignore their designation may find the NPCs try to helpfully guide them, express displeasure at "Void-Touched" who won't assimilate, or in rare cases exert social pressure, coercion, violence or shunning to ensure compliance.

Throughout town various NPCs have set up tents and booths to host myriad performances, workshops, demonstrations, and food stands for their celebration. The foods were made using some of the new flora that have brought back from the peaks. Characters can get their hands on the following heart-themed foods from the second day of the festival onwards:

• HEART-SHAPED COOKIES: eating these intensifies body heat, making characters a great cuddle buddy for the cold weather and likely to strip down, feeling overheated even in a snowdrift
  
  
• BEEF HEART STEW WITH DUXELLES: eating these fills those who consume it with confidence, making them more solicitous and dominant
  
  
• LIME-GLAZED GOAT HEART SATAY: eating these intensifies sensation, making characters more sensitive to both pain and pleasure
  
  
• CINNAMON GLUWEIN: drinking a cup of this hot beverage will make characters especially honest

The nature of the booths set up for performances, workshops, and other goods focuses around the festival's dominance and submission themes. These persist throughout the day regardless of the hour or the audience, so very few people can be found consistently at their places of work during the day this week. In addition:

• Skala and diabel NPCs may offer to share their partner(s) with the Void-touched, or ask to share theirs.
  
  
• PIOTR, a farmer, brings tools over from the farm including bridles and saddles, which can be found at a booth near some hunters who've made anal plugs that end with real animal tails, as well as muzzles.
  
  
• The cages from the Moot Hall have been moved into the streets, and people are allowed to move freely in and out of them. One of them has been covered in curtains to function as a glory hole booth.
  
  
• Some niez and wilk NPCs line up near the main event stage and kneel to offer themselves as human furniture.

However, characters may also come across some carnival games operated by NPCs who are eager to help the Duchess find her heart! Some involve slaughtering livestock by removing their hearts—rest assured, these livestock were already on the menu, but their ritual sacrifice will now involve the cutting out of their hearts. Cut out an animal's heart yourself, or just attend the show! Many of the townspeople will get into it, painting their faces with animal blood or drinking from it.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try reacting to being assigned a dominant or submissive role, scenes where your character is starting to feel the effects of the food, watching (or participating in) a performance, or joining in on a gory animal sacrifice. NPCs that are usually welcoming may strongly pressure even new arrivals to participate in their cultural festivities.

the fathomless dark

At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches.

In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.

Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?

In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!

HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US

Uh oh spaghetti-os.

The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.

Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.

someone else transforms

Poor Merta Chesnokov, the usually stalwart older woman who mans the Apothecary, has been beset by unusual requests in addition to her regular demands, not to mention sweating blood. The festival, a rash of skala blood flu, and a little extra town chaos in January, has brought a high demand to her little shop. Now there's also a local fashion springing up for teas and herbal remedies sourced from the recently revealed tropical mountains.

After another failed tisane test drive, and the third customer asking for a new kind of aphrodisiac to add to their festival food, she was seen tossing down her work knife with uncharacteristic frustration, and taking an "early lunch" that she didn't return from that night. Though her children, friends and employees reach out to her, there's no sign of her until you stumble upon her in the woods.

Merta overboils with her suppressed fury as her body distorts and her flesh blackens and crusts. Her attempts to hold off her transformation have failed, and Merta turns into a Smoldering Skink, a large repillian creature whose thick scales hold back her magmatic insides. The noise she makes is an unhearthly hissing scream like a boiling kettle, and she attempts to vent her pent-up stress by wildly attacking everything in sight. Immediately, the surroundings catch aflame! There will be a small fire eating at the dead wood of a long winter if it's not put out, but your first priority might have to be fielding a stampeding lizard with massive teeth and burning hot scales...

(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)

you waited too long

At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.

Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.

As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

QUESTIONS

[rubimods]

Questions about the prompts? Want to report a death or a crime? Here's a quick way to reach the mods. Please direct regular questions about our app process or the setting to the FAQ.

FIND AN INVITE

[rubimods]

If you're playing here with us but don't actually know anybody to invite you, just drop a comment here - let us know who you are and who you want to play, as well as a plurk handle or other contact, and our current players can offer invitations at their discretion.

alecto | the locked tomb (niez)

[femininerage]

FESTIVAL

There is an ugly mark upon the very ugly flesh of her human body. It sits harmlessly on her hip, and it's easily hidden once she's dressed. But she knows that it's there and knowing that it's there makes her itchy. They told her, three days ago, that this made her a Niez and she hadn't liked it one bit. She knows what she is, now, and it certainly isn't a Niez. Yet the mark persists and she wakes in the uncomfortable busyness of the boarding house each morning, awakes with all this noise in her head and finds herself very cross about it all.

She's very good about not screaming. She wants to scream a lot. She wants to scream out loud more than she would like to scream at the very loud and very annoying voices that filter through her head, but she keeps it to herself. Distantly, she thinks that the people she once thought she loved would be very proud of her for that. Less distantly, she thinks John would like that a lot too. She has mixed feelings about the last one.

On the fourth day she goes to the festival because that's where all the noise is directing her. She doesn't dress particularly as though she's ready for a festival, really. There is a top, and there are trousers - on her feet, despite her very large and present dislike to wear them - are a pair of boots, each on the correct foot. Her hair is tied haphazardly atop her hair, and she thinks, when she glances at herself in the mirror, that the blond of it all is so ghastly on her. She misses her dark hair terribly. She misses the soft silk that had been Harrowhark's beautiful, beautiful hair. Each time she sees herself she thinks she ought to stab John again and again for making her this. Pale; blond; doll-like; really and truly very ugly.

Her mood doesn't improve by the time she's in thoroughfare; someone tries to put a collar on her and she bites, furiously, and hisses: "Off!" In the middle of them trying to appeal to her to stop biting please, she turns to you and bares her teeth, and says: "If you touch me, I will chew your whole arm off! I will!" And she will.

-

Once the drama is over with and she has, very miserably, been convinced to wear a wrist collar, she wanders straight out to the stalls. The food holds no appeal to her, even the cookies. She drifts to the toys after this, and finds herself much more interested in the stranger dildos, the paddles, and the anal beads.

The latter of which she holds in her hands, the beads huge by comparison. Awed, she murmurs: "How does it fit?" And, to the tentacle shaped glass dildos, whispers, a little sadly: "Oh, there used to be so many of these inside of me. So many. They're all dead now, you know."

ROOMIE

Before all of that, on the first day, she is guided to the boarding house dressed in a shift, a jumper, and someone's very tattered shoes. She quite likes them. The sweater is very itchy, however, and upon finding a room with a bed that is unoccupied, she takes the sweater off in a flurry and says: "Phew!"

The second thing she says, upon flinging herself upon the bed after it, is: "They said I had to find a room. I'll be sleeping here," and that's really that. No if's, no but's, this is hers now. "Please don't snore. I think I'll be really upset if you snore."

NETWORK

PLEASE. STOP. TALKING. IN. MY HEAD!!! I. REALLY. DO !!!NOT!!! LIKE. IT.

THANK YOU

- MARGOT ROBBIE xxxxx

PS WHOEVER KEEPS HAVING VERY LOUD SEX JUST NOW, STOP THAT. YOU SOUND VERY BAD AT IT.

[unconscionable]

This is, John thinks, going to be very bad for his marriage.

"Good morning, Annabel," he says instead of any of the other things he wants to say. The begging words, the accusations. He's not wearing a shirt, and he also doesn't have his sword, which currently seems like a violent oversight.

He's horribly aware of her as a separate being to him, as a source of inconceivable power that he isn't actually properly linked to anymore — if he was they'd be having a conversation in the rubble of his new castle. But despite their separation he can still resonate the bits of him in her, the bits of her in him (the ones that have him turning into a fucking flower these days, his own Niez mark stark on his palm.) He's also horribly aware that her sweet little hands holding a sex object is doing complicated shit to his insides. This festival had already been a trial — now it's a goddamn execution.

Dorothy Lyon • Fargo • Skala

[bisquik]

KNOCK KNOCK
[ The woman is clearly a new arrival, dishevelled and dirty and naked, fresh from Pajak Wood. Her mascara is smudged and her eyes red like she's been crying, though there's no sign of it in her sweet friendly smile. She's rapping on the door (or doorway) of the first house she's found — one of the people who live outside the walls. ]

Hi there! Sorry to be a bother. Just wondering if I could use your phone real quick? I won't be a sec.


BLOOD FLU
Oh, nuts.

[ Dot looks down at the blood coating her fingers, which she's certain means she just got her monthlies, and then up to check for anybody watching. When it becomes apparent she's not alone, though, she simply leans into it. ]

Timing, huh? Don't suppose you have a tissue on ya.

[ Friendly, ingratiating. There's red at the edges of her smile, where her arm is crossed over her bare chest for modesty there's a green mark peeking out of her cleavage that makes it clear why her bodily fluids are suddenly all bloody. ]


ASSIGNED DOMINANT
[ By this point, Dot has shoes and clothes and has had a nice night's sleep in a bed, so her pleasant demeanor is a little less strained. Still, she's not happy about being away from her kid so long. She's doing her best to make everyone's aquaintance, get what information she can, and that includes being ushered into a line to hand in her chastity belt. ]

Oh, I'm sorry, I can't help with that. No, no, I just got here, I don't have anything like that.

A mark? Oh sure.

[ Once she's established as a Skala, the man hands her a leather wrist strap, and she takes it with a polite thank you. It's only when she sees someone else being given a collar that she knows to be relieved. ]

Actually, I just remembered, I do have somewhere else to be. Thank you so much. Can I just hand this right on back to you? No, I insist. That's right. There we go. Bye now.


NETWORK
Nice weather here.

[ That's all, no follow up. Just a soft Minnesotan accent testing out using her mind to say stuff, since she's having to listen to everyone else's conversation. Dorothy doesn't really want to have a real conversation, and she sure doesn't want to talk about the nudity or the blood or the festival. ]

---

(( prose also loved. open to wildcards of fellow new arrivals in the forest; deciding to share a room together; chatting over breakfast or in the sauna; or any of the food prompts!

threads may contain spoilers for season five. ))

knock knock

[verbol]

[Jim doesn't have the luxury of sleeping late anymore. He's awake before dawn most days, just a couple hours after if he's lucky. The fire is already going when the door goes, and he's already brewing something hot over it for breakfast. He's become a tea drinker despite his best efforts, and this is really only for the lack of anything else. He's not very good at brewing it, but there's a pot ready to go.

He answers the door in his onesie, expects anyone else really, besides a naked stranger. It's so early, that the first thing out his mouth is: ] Ah, geez. [And then: ] No phone out here, I'm afraid. You uh - you better come inside anyway before you catch your death out there.

[He is very politely keeping his eyes on her face. ] I think I have some sweaters that'll see you through today.

Percy Fredrickstein von tl;dr III 🜍 Niez 🜍 Crit Role

[nospecialhurry]

🜪 Hearts.

Curious about the lives of these people, Percy wanders through the festival and where and when possible, barters for food and drink. There's nothing on the list that revolts him and if he's able to get a bite to eat, he'll take it gladly. (Especially if it's the satay, or later in the day, the gluwein.)

He doesn't yet have access to a forge, but soon he will - there's no little town that doesn't need a smithy and he knows that once he has a hammer in hand, soot in his hair, and an anvil in front, he'll feel more like himself.

He's not fond of the slim, black leather collar around his throat, but for now he can swallow his pride and do what's required to blend in. Deep in his chest he's confident that the others of Vox Machina will find him - something shading towards optimism or belief in others is a novelty.

The sacrifices unsettle him. Aware that this is the local custom, he watches but keeps drawing unpleasant parallels in his mind between this place and another. It doesn't seem innately harmful or evil, but he can't sense that like some others could. "Is this generally how food is slaughtered around here or ...?

🜏 May I, the humble servant, not be destroyed; declare that "It is over"!

It starts out simply, barely any difference at all; the light reflects off his glasses in an odd way. There's no fire nearby, but the lenses reflect flames or just a simple, bright light. Percy can tell that something has changed, but never one to show weakness in public and certainly not in front of strangers, he takes himself outside to do some work. Chopping wood. Maybe some physical exertion will take the edge off...

It's while he's in mid-swing that he puts a name to what's happening. It's not a new feeling, but one he has only been able to name through its absence. The knowledge and the terror it sparks in him, startles him enough so that he misses his swing, splintering the log, as the ax-head swishes by his leg close enough that it brushes the fabric.

"Damn it all to hell." Dropping the ax, he looks down at his hand where there's a quill-sized shard of wood buried in base of his thumb.

🝐 OOC.

Howdy buds, let me know if you need additional info, what a custom set-up, etc.

Wood

[princess_of_ida]

"Some think we're already there," said Ianthe as she stacked some wood from the far end of the pile into the arms of an animated skeleton.

She raised an eyebrow, turning more toward him. Another new arrival. "You didn't cut your foot off, did you?"

will graham | nbc hannibal (diabel)

[ligature]

i. arrival

He shows up on the outskirts of town, a cagey stray dog of a man who will be courting frostbite if he's out in the elements as he is for much longer. Someone must have spotted him on his solitary journey down the old dirt road, because he's got a roughspun wool cloak tugged around his shoulders to ward off the worst of the cold. No shoes, though. His feet are bare, pale, and encrusted with both blood and dirt.

There's nothing about the gate threshold that should be keeping him out, but he ends up standing there anyway like the act of stepping out of the wilderness and back into civilization's embrace has left him poleaxed. And so when he catches movement in his peripheral vision--someone else entering the town through the gates, or someone leaving, it doesn't really matter--he looks their way and asks in a weak, reedy voice, "Is this real?"

ii. boarding house

He's hunkered down at the end of a table in the common area with a bowl of porridge and something hot and fragrant to drink in front of him. Will only looks up from his meagre meal if anyone addresses him directly, and even then, there's a detached quality to his grey eyes that suggests he isn't looking at the newcomer before him so much as through them, back in time to another place entirely.

Still, he wasn't raised in a barn. "Might as well sit down," he says to whomever, and shifts over on the bench to make room.

iii. wildcard

[ooc: if these don't work for you, please feel free to throw something else at me or hmu via DMs @ ragweed to discuss something else c:]

[nospecialhurry]

"Thank you." Percy takes his own meal and sits down across from Will. For what it's worth, he has something approaching good manners, and won't intrude on Will's space any more than he needs to.

Will is welcome to notice all manner of curious things about Percy: a bit fussy about how he dresses himself, he prefers to keep his gloves on whenever possible, but will take them off to eat. There is a fine spray of tiny burn marks and embedded black powder over the backs of his hands - some new, some old, but most are almost healed. He holds himself as if he's eating at a much finer table, but isn't bothered in the slightest eating whatever's been served.

Gabe Rodriguez | Original | Diabel

[minuteofangle]

ooc: sci-fi space pirate with adaptive tech.

Boarding House (cw: eye trauma, internalized ableism)

[ Well, life sure comes at a man fast, doesn’t it? This isn’t the first time Gabe’s woken up naked and disoriented somewhere he didn’t intend, but the details: oh, those are nagging at him. Those are digging into the corners of his soul. He made it out of the woods bare ass naked and into something resembling civilization, but he doesn’t know this place. Doesn’t recognize the accents the people are speaking with or the context to half the nonsense they’re sharing. Not getting a bullet through his head or a knife pressed to his throat is nice, but not especially comforting as far as resolutions go.

That, and his prosthetics are gone. His skull’s got no eyes, and his armor’s long gone: no mask to hide the damage, to conceal that tiny little detail Gabe guards jealously close to his soul. Anyone could look at his face and know. And in knowing, they’ll start making judgement calls.

He gets dressed in borrowed clothes, in the meantime. There’s a coat with a deep hood and he pulls that down over his face, angling his head to hide the worst of it in shadow, and he plants himself in a chair by the fire with a little bit of paper he begged off a local. They like tradespeople around here and he talked a big game about showing them something special.

So, he’s folding paper flowers. And listening, and not thinking about the fun new tattoo on the side of his neck. ]

You new? [ he’ll drawl to whoever happens to wander close. He’s got a big stick he’s been using as a cane propped up by his chair, but he’s careful—so very careful—to keep his face as hidden as he can with the hood. His tech is working so far, but that’s a detail he intends to keep to himself. ]

Roommates

[ But, since he really doesn’t want to rough it out in the woods with no gear, the time comes to find some place to bunk. He’ll push a door open, leaning his hip against it with a careless grin—on the surface, at least. He keeps the hood pulled as low over his face as he can possibly bluff through. ]

Hi. Occupied?

Festival (cw: eye trauma, internalized ableism)

[ Crowds are either fun as fuck or a goddamn nightmare and little in between. Gabe isn’t certain where this one falls just yet—though on the bright side, he’s bargained his way into a pair of ye olde sunglasses from the local craftsmen so his eyes don’t look so abjectly fucked. It’s enough armor that he’s ventured out to get his bearings.

And, apparently, to listen to animals getting their hearts cut off.

His eyebrows lift. ]

Damn. They usually this freaky?

[ He’s managed to avoid getting noticed by the locals—for now. ]

Wildcard

[ Hit me up at mirrorfaded if you’re in the mood for something specific! ]

boarding house!

[omertae]

Wouldn't you like to know.

[ Not exactly the most sophisticated response, but Angelo's pissed off and grumpy and he feels stranded, for some reason, so he's not exactly in the friendliest of moods. He'd wandered in here with no real idea of where he was going; he feels listless, without purpose, like he's abruptly run out of road. His life's been upended, moved a few steps to the left, with all the grace of an explosion, and right now he's stuck at the second stage of grief about it. He's always at the second stage of grief.

Angelo slouches over to a nearby wall to lean against it, one hand locking against his hip, watching the guy's hands because they're moving, and they've caught his gaze. ]

What're you doing?

angelo salucci — original character.

[omertae]

001. boarding house.

[ Waking up naked in a forest full of spiders is one thing, but expecting him to share a room with strangers is taking this abduction entirely too far. Out of sheer unbridled stubbornness, Angelo has decided that he's not kowtowing to any of this bullshit: his first night in the boarding house is spent in a slightly lumpy armchair, arms crossed over his chest as if he's daring anyone to tell him he's being ridiculous, even while he's sleeping.

His back's killing him the next morning. Might've been an idea to just suck it up and find a room to share, but – god, he just does not want to fucking do that. Stretching awkwardly, scowling, he creaks up out of the armchair and shuffles outside, hands in the pockets of his new tailored trousers. Whether on the way or actually outside, he spots someone else. ]

Hey. D'you smoke?

[ He has a heavy Long Island accent and a fairly unapproachable air, but he did reach out first, at least. ]

002. hearts festival.

[ Festivals and parties aren't exactly Angelo's thing, but this is a brand new place and he's not gonna pass up the opportunity to see what these people get up to when they're meant to be celebrating. He's barely taken in the cacophony of things happening around him before someone's grabbed his arm and tied a strap around his wrist; he's almost, almost pissed about it, until he notices that there are others who've been saddled with collars. He thinks if someone had tried that on him, he would've beaten the shit out of them before they could get the collar around his neck.

He cuts an extremely sallow, unimpressed figure at the festival, loping from attraction to attraction but always hovering at the fringes, brow furrowed. But he finally manages to crack a smile at the display of sex toys; he sincerely can't help himself, as he picks up a plug sprouting an animal tail, from snorting a laugh. ]

Is this for fuckin' real?

[ OOC — i'm also happy to do something with the stew, the satay or the gluwein; if you want to go in this direction, lmk and i can set something up! m/m only for smut. ]

003. network.

[ Once Angelo understands how this communication system works, it's not at all difficult for him to get to grips with it. For someone already intimately familiar with getting in other people's heads, it comes easily and quickly. He quite likes it, too. More convenient than texting. ]

I need someone to test something out on. A volunteer. Can't pay you, but someone here's gotta be the altruistic type. Maybe you wanna do it out of the goodness of your heart. [ A deliberate pause which almost sounds like he's finished, but then he abruptly continues: ] Won't take long and I promise it won't hurt if you're not a pussy about it.

[ Okay, now he's done. ]

004. wildcard.

[ hmu via PM or at crowders if you want to do something else! ]

Network

[princess_of_ida]

I'm not altruistic, but I am bored. Give me the second pitch.

eddie gluskin / outlast / diabel

[killsyourdarlings]

cw | opt-out | permissions

naked around the produce

( Regardless of this town's cavalier attitude towards exhibitionism, Eddie is, nonetheless, horrified by his undignified nature in the face of the public. It was trouble enough mucking about in those woods, naked for all to see, allowing himself to become caught and scraped on any number of thistle and bush, but this? This is unseemly. There are children about, for the love of God!

Eddie is an unbelievably tall man, so hiding himself away is a task to be sure. He's keeping himself pressed to buildings and doing his best to preserve whatever shred of modesty might remain. )

Excuse me.

( He's whispering to you from between a potted plant and a stall selling fresh fruit, crouched down and looking about for eyes that, really, don't exist. No one is looking at him. No one cares. But Eddie cares! Just because he doesn't feel eyes on him doesn't mean they aren't there. )

If I may be so bold as to trouble you... Can you assist me in finding some proper clothing?

( Even improper clothing would do. Eddie knows he won't be able to tailor himself a suit right here and now: there's no time for that. He'll settle for low-slung jeans and those abhorrent basketball jerseys if he must! Just give him something! )

feeling festive

cw: misogyny

( The wrist strap, he finds, is the lesser of offenses considering what could have been assigned to him. He feels sorry for the sods walking around in collars, but not that sorry. He's not sorry enough to pity them or anything, just enough to look down upon them and feel, for some reason, a sense of superiority.

When heart-themed foods are offered, he opts for the cinnamon drink because it smells the most enticing. Not seconds later, he begins letting loose. )

I don't care much for this sordid affair. ( Well, that's something he'd likely say with or without the influence of an honesty potion. ) A town that lauds those who present themselves like whores, it's disgusting.

( There's the Eddie that we know and love[?].

Despite his disgust, Eddie eventually gets into the swing of things. When random townies offer themselves as furniture around the main stage, he doesn't hesitate to kicks his feet up and use the back of some local woman as a footrest. Yes, this feels right. She's in her place, as she should be. It's a little more extreme than he'd engage with in ordinary life, but if a woman is offering herself as a subservient being, she's right to do so.

The next time someone, man or woman, comes close to him, Eddie looks curious. )

Have you come to take her place? Very well. Run along now, Darling. ( He shoos away the woman kneeling before him and invites the new person closer, whether they intended to be a footstool or not. )

oops!
(network)

cw: misogyny

She will be mine and mine alone. No other man shall mar her skin. Her heart beats for me as mine does for her. We will be one. Her blood pumps for no other. Look at the way she creams her flesh, soft fingers smoothing lotion over lanes of pale beauty—

—Ah, fuck, did she spot me?

...No? No, she knows nothing. Carry on, my love. Continue bathing yourself in the light of day. This windowpane is all that separates us.

But has she been touched by another, I wonder. She mustn't've. If she has, she's spoiled. She's no good. She's rotten to the core! She's a filthy, hideous whore! She should burn, and I'll be the one to set her ablaze!

( Get this psycho off the network!!! )

network

[ghostface]

( bruh. )

you ain't gonna find too many tight little virgins here, pal.

Peony Emeline 'Ambrosia' Blythe - Original - Diabel

[hislittleflower]

Boarding House

"No, no, no. You're failing to understand the gravity of the situation, sir." The diminutive woman was arguing with one of the villagers questioning her about potential skills and talents. "I have minimal intention of staying here long enough to require work." It was bad enough that she was bundled up in such rough fabric. Peony had snatched the first bedsheet she'd caught sight of and headed straight to argue with any point of authority she could find, leaves and twigs still adorning her waist-length blonde hair. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rearranged her blanket so that her arm was free.

"Excuse me, sweetness--" Peony reached out and touched the arm of a stranger passing by, leaning on her beguiling influence to pull softness and admiration from her target. Her doe eyes were green and begging for a big strong hero to come save her. Her fairie guile laid on thick in the hope of getting what she needed. "I'm getting nowhere with this gentleman. Might you be able to accompany me to the nearest temple or cleric? I have urgent business elsewhere and I am in desperate need of assistance."

Hearts Festival

"Don't you have a prettier cuff?" It's a reasonable question; by Peony's standards. She's willing to go with the peculiar custom - beats the hell out of what she had been dealing with in Barovia - and had willingly offered out her arm when she was told to. "Perhaps in gold or platinum? I would accept white gold if I must. But this isn't..." She grimaced and see-sawed her hand. "I absolutely cannot have iron on my skin. I'm...allergic?" Well, it would sicken her. But she didn't need to draw attention to that.

Once the matter with the cuff was sorted out, Peony was happy to watch the performances and eye all the different types of instruments they had available to them and the peculiar themes. At one point she tuts and leans over to another person watching; "I mean, do you even really believe the dynamic between them? I'm not getting the chemistry here."

Wildcard

It is entirely possible that while you're minding your own business you might come to feel you're being watched. In the dead of night, reflective green eyes might follow you out of the gloom, during the day there might be a train of blonde hair that doesn't quite make it around a corner as Peony attempts and fails to hide her presence. What is she stalking random people for? You'll have to catch her to find out.

Wildcard (cw: blood, flogging)

[princess_of_ida]

Peony's repeated requests for a temple or cleric eventually convinced one of the locals to direct her to go see Deathwarden Ianthe Tridentarius as Churchwarden Mateus wasn't taking appointments that day. Though warned that the Deathwarden was on vacation, she was a fellow Void-Touched and would likely assist however she could. She was easy to pick out of a crowd: just look for the golden bone arm.

Ianthe was found at an aftercare station by a booth dedicated to various forms of impact play. She sat with her torso bare, leather collar about her neck, and her long blonde hair in a tight French braid. The length of braid draped down her from while one of the villagers gently cleaned the long lines of blood from her back, remnants from someone enthusiastically taking an implement to her. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any actual welts or wounds found under the blood as it was cleaned.

That golden bone arm Peony had been told would identify the Deathwarden? They hadn't been kidding. The entirely of her right arm from phalanges to where the bone emerged from the meat of her deltoid was of a metallic gold, and she appeared to have full control and articulation despite there being no flesh upon it save for a fatty pad on her palm.

jessica jones . mcu ( wilk )

[ebrius]

001 IN THE WOODS

"Fuck."

It's the first and only word that she can find to describe the situation that she's in. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Jessica Jones has had a lot of bad nights that lead into bad mornings but this is...

This is something entirely different. She remembers going to bed last night with her clothes on, a bottle of something tucked under her chin, and now she's waking up naked in a forest.

"Fucking fuck, what the — "

Climbing to her feet, she looks around. Her head pounds and her stomach roils. Jessica bends over, hands on her knees like she's going to vomit but manages to hold it in.

It's cold. She shivers and curls her toes into the earth, dirt squishing between her toes. She doesn't stand there long before she starts walking. She's not going to get anywhere just standing there like a dumb shit and she needs to find out what the hell's happened.

Eventually, she finds the town. Jessica Jones is a lot of things but she's not shy so she doesn't give two shits that she's naked. She doesn't want to stay like this but no one seems to care that she's walking around like she is. Had she stumbled into some nudist colony? Gotten drunk and wandered way, way far from home?

More questions than answers at this point. She keeps walking, trying to figure out where she can get some clothes and where she can get a drink. Not necessarily in that order.

002 HEARTS FESTIVAL

She refuses to put on the collar. It doesn't matter how many encourgement and urging she gets, it's not happening. She's not going to wear anything that makes her think of a past that still haunts her or gives anyone an idea that she can be owned. She'd rather die.

Her "compromise", if you can call it that, is to hold it and if one more person tries to tell her to put it on, she's going to beat them with it and leave their body for the wolves.

Jessica doesn't even want to be here. This whole thing is like some hallucination that she can't get out of. She's being fucked with and she doesn't like it. That nauseous feeling from earlier has never really left but she's doing a good job of keeping any discomfort off her face.

Disdain and disgust? No, you'll definitely find those if you look her way. What she wants is a drink but she keeps walking by booths with food, vendors that try and sell her shit that she doesn't want except —

Her stomach rumbles a bit. She's nauseous but she's hungry which is just great. To both satisfy the hunger and to shut up the shrill calls of the vendors, she picks up a goat heart satay and starts eating it. It's not bad. Definitely not the microwaveable shit she eats back home.

003 WILDCARD

If you'd like to do something else, feel free to toss it up this way.

— out of the woods and into town

[pharmacy]

Normally, when he gets word about people starting to drift in from the woods, Quentin likes to head out with supplies to guide folks in. Especially in this weather, a spare coat and a calm explanation can go a long way. These chilly days, however, the apothecary is down a master druggist, the clinic is down a doctor, and Quentin has been so swamped with kholzaviridae and house calls that he hasn't even realized new Void-touched are drifting in until he sees her.

"Oh--shit, hey." He stops where he's crossing into the street from someone's home, just in front of her, and automatically sets his bag down (glass and paper parcels murmuring inside) to wrestle out of his coat. He isn't shy about looking at her as he greets, "Sorry, did no one--jesus, it's a cold time to come to town. Here. Here, put this on--"

His wool coat, offered at arms' length with a wan smile. "It's--probably itchy, but. Let's get you warm and then we'll worry about comfortable."

𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖓 𝖊𝖝𝖕𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓 / metalocalypse / wilk

[murdercycle]

( 1 ) 𝖉𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖊

( Waking up, feeling sick, having no idea of where he's at... that's just Nathan Explosion's normal Tuesday. Chances are he drank too much and wandered out into the woods after a show, as one does. That's fine. Even the fact that he's naked is fine. It's a little weird once he starts running into other people, but it's not weird for him specifically. )

Hey. ( His voice is deep and his stature is large, but when he calls for his fellow forest-dweller's attention, it's with a petulant impatience. If they don't answer right away, he'll go on and on, 'Hey. Hey. Hello. Hello. Listen to me. Hey. Quit ignoring me. Heeeeeey,' etc.

If/when they do look Nathan's way, he's got a handful of twigs, leaves, and a few stray berries in his hand. )

You think we can eat these?

( He's hungry! )

( 2 ) 𝖉𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖇𝖊𝖉

( Once they're out of the woods and back into 'civilization,' Nathan still feels sorta weird about being naked, even if he isn't the only one coming out of the forest with his balls out. So, maybe he got trashed and attended a forest orgy. It's possible.

People are directing him to the boarding house, which sounds good enough for now... No, actually, it sounds like a lame place for regular people, but he wants clothes and food [he's a simple man], so it'll have to do.

Everyone is clamoring in the common room, and it sounds like it's a first-come, first-serve sort of deal, which sucks. He hasn't had to share shit with anyone in so long, the very idea of having to share a space with someone takes him aback. )

Is this a poor person thing?

( When it comes time to actually get a room, he just has to do it the old-fashioned way. )

Dibs.

( Sorry, current occupier of this room: Nathan's looking around and he's clearly calling it, so you gotta go. )

( 3 ) 𝖉𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖘𝖊𝖝
cw: minor homophobia

( Wearing a collar feels gross and a little gay. He bristles at the thought, initially refusing. These locals are fucking persistent, though, so Nathan eventually yells, 'All right! I'll wear the stupid collar,' which satisfies them.

Once it's on, it's fine. He doesn't even really think about it as he's walking around and taking in all the cool festival stuff. And it is actually cool. People are just fucking everywhere, and that's wild. He's used to seeing groupies and floozies, but not out in public like this. As interesting as it all is, Nathan still finds that watching people fuck is gross, so he doesn't spend much time staring at any individual couple. It's the fact that they're so open with it that feels sick.

It's like he's in Hornyland.

Eating the goat heart feels like a no-brainer because that's brutal as fuck. He doesn't even notice the secondary effects until later when some dude offers up his wife for the taking and, well, she's kinda hot... )

I mean, I'm kind of a dick if I don't fuck her, right?

( He wants someone to affirm his decision, but he's totally going to do it either way.

Right, so, this lady is either the best at sex, or there's something about this festive that makes sex feel especially good, better than it's ever been. He doesn't blame the goat heart, because why would he?

He's gotta test this [once he's done with her, of course]. He comes up to someone, anyone, and asks straight out: )

You wanna... you know?

( It might be the laziest proposition for doing you-know-what ever. )

2

[dethangel]

[Toki's disoriented as hell about all of this, but somehow he manages to push his way into a room. Part of it's just luck, probably, but part of it might be the muscles. He doesn't get the room to himself very long before he hears someone else, though. Someone incredibly familiar. He turns, eyes widening at who he sees.]

Oh! Nathans!

[He looks thrilled that he didn't end up here alone. That's probably a good sign.]

Comes in, I just gots this place.

[Nathan can have second dibs.]

Temper ♉︎ Original ♉︎ Skala

[heresthebeef]

𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖙 (𝖈𝖜: 𝖎𝖒𝖕𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖊𝖝𝖚𝖆𝖑 𝖘𝖑𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞)

[ A snort and a snarl signal the awakening of the hefty beast that's sprawled out on the forest floor. Before he even opens his eyes, he knows something is very, very wrong. Every morning for almost his entire life he's woken up in the same place, to the same smells and the same sounds. There is no sweet scent of hay. No shouting of farmhands and no thump of their boots against the wooden planks of the stable. The bizarre comforting consistencies of his subjugated life.

Pushing himself up in a panic, eyes darting around at the unfamiliar scenery as his mind races - no. Firm and resolute he smothers the fear before it can spread. Collects himself. Reminds himself who he is, what he is. He was born in a forest, wasn't he? Even if his mind can't remember it.

The nudity is not a concern. Clothing wasn't something he wore very often; a human custom that he only really favored when the human girls he flirted with were wearing things that accentuated their bodies. Tight things, short things. Those were all right.

Lifting his snout to the air he takes a deep, long inhale, closing his eyes and taking in the information his advanced sense of smell grants him.

Humans. But does he want to find them? He'll think about it as he starts walking. ]

𝖙𝖔𝖜𝖓 (𝖈𝖜: 𝖘𝖊𝖝𝖚𝖆𝖑 𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖆𝖘𝖘𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙/𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖎𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓)

Towering over everyone isn't anything new, but usually there's at least one or two other minotaur around so the size discrepancy isn't so dramatic. Determining that this town isn't used to his sort comes easy; the way they stare with a hint of confusion and trepidation is impossible to miss. Well, the adults to anyway. He's already had to snort out a warning to some brat who thought it would be fun to yank on his tail. At least most of the townies leave him alone once they've sussed out he's not looking to cause any trouble.

Still, all the gawking gets annoying after awhile, especially when his nerves are already frayed from trying to make sense of his circumstances. Everything is off about these humans. Their dress, their manner of speaking, the equipment they use. It's putting him off kilter in spite of his best efforts to be stoic.

When he catches another pair of eyes on him he wants to let off a little steam, regulate himself the best way he knows how. ]

That open mouth of yours an invitation? Because you're gonna need to stretch it way more than that for what I got.

[ Good 'ol intimidation via sexual harassment. ]

𝖗𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖊𝖘

[ One of the perks of being an established and valuable bull is that you don't have to share your stall with anyone. Only the most inexperienced (read: stupid) farmhand would house two bulls in the same pen, creating a situation where one or both will end up goring each other in short order. Bulls don't like to share. Cows, or space.

So when Temper wanders into a room he likes the look of, he's not especially pleased to find it already occupied. The looming comes naturally, his usual method of making it clear to whomever is in posession of something he wants that he's a brick wall of flesh. Difficult to move, if not impossible for many. Eyes narrowed, tail whipping into a froth behind him. ]

Leave.

𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖛𝖆𝖑 (𝖈𝖜: 𝖘𝖊𝖝𝖚𝖆𝖑 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖎𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓. 𝖎𝖒𝖕𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖊𝖝𝖚𝖆𝖑 𝖘𝖑𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞)

[ It is probably the best outcome for all that must interact with Temper that the Skala are the doms this time, as he is much easier to convince to go along with the whole theme knowing his designation. In his mind, it's the only designation he should have. Unsettled as he remains internally by the abrupt changes in his life, bossing people around sexually is an area he has plenty of experience in. Especially doing so under direction from a higher authority.

Having a lot more freedom than he's used to having without breaking the rules isn't half bad, either.

Were one to be observing him for a long period they would notice that he steers as clear as he can from the areas the livestock are being sacrificied, although he does his best to make it appear as if that's simply because the whole scene bores him.

No, he's much more content to find some pretty thing that catches his eye, collared or not, and barge into their personal space as if it's owed to him like a locomotive made of meat. Maybe he's had a little too much freedom too quickly. ]

You. You're mine.

((ooc: If there's something else you wanna try out with this beef, you can DM me on this account or on plurk at tentaclemonster! Also sorry for only having three icons I'm workin' on more! ))

Festival

[dead_tongue]

[Iggy is not collared. Iggy is also not particularly bothered by having his personal space invaded - he's used to it. He isn't even that thrown off by the fact that this guy is half cow.

He holds up a hand. His voice is low and pleasant.]

No. I'm not.

Dawn Granger| Titans | WILK

[dawn_is_breaking]

In The Woods Somewhere:

Nudity isn't exactly something that bothers Dawn, what bothers her is that she's woken up in a strange place with no idea how she got there. The last thing she remembers was going to bed in her apartment in New York after doing her usual patrols and now here she is, walking naked through a dense forest.

If there is anyone else in the woods they will notice her rather easily, her pale skin and white blonde hair are a stark contrast to the lush green moss and trees. She moves cautiously yet gracefully, like some sort of albino deer.

"Hello?" She calls out, her eyes flickering through the woods for signs of anyone else.

Hearts Festival:

One of the easiest ways to put Dawn at ease (and she needs to be put at ease after being 'strongly encouraged' to wear a soft leather collar) is to put her near food, not only does she love to cook but she is a big believer of the community aspect of it. Sharing meals with friends and family was something very important to her, especially when she was with the Titans, so once she figures out that the zadza purging festival has food stands that's exactly where you'll find her.

Seated to one side, sipping the Cinnamon Gluwein, and watching all the different people, performances and festival traditions.

Wildcard:
Feel free to throw anything my way.

[dead_tongue]

"It's all spiked, you know."

Said offhandedly by the way-too-tall-in-heels ginger who has just gotten himself some stew. He's dressed all in pink and cream, dominant's wrist cuff pale leather to match.

"The food and drink, I mean. Some kind of magic thing."

junko enoshima | dangan ronpa | niez

[cutcrease]

😲 𝗻𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗱 & 😨 𝗮𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗱??

[ Junko Enoshima is naked. Junko Enoshima is naked, but she is alive.

When she wakes up entirely, breathing. Blood pumping. Eyes flooded with light. Junko Enoshima is naked and alive and upset. She is inconsolable, screaming like she's throwing a tantrum in the seconds that follow her registering touch, dirt beneath her bare toes. If you catch her in these moments of being, she just may throw something your way— a rock, an animal (something big or small? Equally likely!), or a tree! Dealer's choice.

Later that day she's playing dumb, noticing other people equally as lost as her (unlikely— Junko actually discovered the town an hour ago, but there's no fun in an easy exit). She's crying ugly, fat, tears when you catch her in the middle of the very dark and dangerous forest, knees bruised and scraped up, long blond hair frizzy and stuck with purposely placed twigs. Pointedly: nothing dark and dangerous is registering her. Every animal that should be here is purposely avoiding Junko. Huh, odd!

Optionally: she'll get bored. Junko will make a ye olde house made out of wood that is more for aesthetic than proper shelter. There is smoke billowing out of the roof all the same (cooking? Food?). She hears your footsteps outside and immediately puts a blue eye to the peephole. ]

Hmmmmmmmmm. What's the password?

💃💃💃 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆

[ Historically, Junko does not like being told what to do. So the collar they try strapping on her is used for aesthetic. She steals a leash instead, just like how she steals clothing from the porches of unsuspecting town folk. Does she do anything with it? No, not yet. She is using the pencil and notebook she found, first. ]

The beautiful and super gorg Junko Enoshima sits atop her empire, watching as the horny ass townspeople get freaky in the streets. It's such a culture shock! Sex? BDSM?! She's never seen such a thing. But Junko Enoshima is no quitter. No, the first person she sees approaching [ you ] she stares at—

[ She doesn't. ]

—and she decides to approach, no matter how freaky or smelly they are.

[ She doesn't. ]

Ohmigod, aren't these the cutest??

[ The cookies, the gluwein, the leashed up muzzled weirdo serving them on a tray. She snorts. ]

This is just like a festival at my high school, awwwww. Here, try it!

[ Oh, are you like, in the glory hole to suck someone off? Well surprise, there's a knock coming from the other side. ]

Knock, knock! Anybody home?

🥶 𝗳𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 🔦 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗸?!?!, cw: mentions of death

[ The void feels like death. Or at least, she imagines. Her own was quick and unexpected, all pain instantaneous and glorifying. This is long and agonizing, like she can't breathe no matter how deep a breath she takes. It's awesome. Those in town who have kept an eye on the blonde will notice that, uh oh, she's actually been gone for a really long time. Longer than most void-touched would go— and she's made it a point for one wily citizen to make a fuss if she does.

(She has poor impulse control.)

So maybe you're here to save her, or maybe you're here because you kind of want to see what happens like she does. Either way you're greeted with the same scene: ]

Wow, took you long enough!

[ One of those giant blood-red spiders is clutched in her hands out in front of her, snarling face skewed out towards you. Junko approaches you with quick steps, the spider getting more frenzied. ]

Here, hold this for me?

𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱
[ or hit me with whatever! open to smut, f/f and m/f 18+! 👍 also general blanket cw junko is an awful person and will make it a point to make your character uncomfy, fyi!! ]

Fathomless Dark

[muitenpen]

[It's not that Mahito wants to head back to the void, exactly. But half the reason he'd taken a liking to this stretch of the forest had been that those dropped into it were usually smart enough to leave. Seeing the opposite, how can he not be at least somewhat curious?

When following along eventually leads to a switch in who's closing in on who, he stops, allowing the approach.

Only,]

Nope.

[The refusal's given a little too casually, as he simply smiles down at the spider before looking back to the girl's face.]

You probably shouldn't mess with the wildlife out here. It's that guy's job to drag your corpse into town, but I don't think it minds starting while you're alive.

Halloween Jack | Diamond Dogs (album) | Wilk

[ghosttownapproach]

There is a rustling of leaves when the wind is calm. There is a glimpse of colour -- of bright orange-red, among the dulled brown-grey-green of winter. Supplies 'fall off of' the carts that journey through the woods to trade with Rubilykskoye. A goat goes missing, and its remains are found two days later, picked clean. Nothing but offal and cracked bones.

There is something in the woods, the news goes out. And there are no villagers or void-touched unaccounted for.

--

In the woods a savvy explorer, familiar with the lay of the land, may realise that a small hollow within a couple miles of the gate is -- gone. Covered over with branches and moss and stones, looking as though it had never been. If courage or cleverness lead to investigation, the hole is (of course) merely covered over.

But discovery is not one-sided. There is a scream, an awful feral sound, and something very person-shaped flings its way out of the hiding-place, and throws itself at the interloper. Long, curved claws aimed for the face.

"Fuck on outta here! Hssst!"

--

Those who tend to stay in Rubilykskoye may still hear of this minor mystery. And then, one night, it comes to them. There is a shadow passing along a rooftop. The creak of rusty hinges as a doors swings open. The gleam of tapetum lucidum, one shining eye in the dark.

A creature... a man? Prowling the streets. Stealing from yards and unsecured shops. Pale. Red-haired. Clad in stolen rags and in goat-hide. A strip of cloth over one of its eyes.

When it is spotted, it runs. Or it tries to. It does not know the village well, and it can be cornered easily. When it finds itself trapped, it bares its teeth in an animal parody of a smile, a single catlike eye darting around as it searches for an escape.

"C'mon, love. A ferr's gotta eat, don' he?"

--

The mystery is inevitably solved. The creature is apprehended, and it turns out to be a person. A feline humanoid that gives its name -- his name -- as 'Halloween Jack,' once he's convinced that nobody means him harm.

He has bright orange-red hair, and a patch over one eye; the other eye is bright green, slit-pupiled. Sharp teeth, sharp claws. Sharp wit. And right now, he is perched on a bench in a holding cell, clutching a mug of water with both clawed hands.

(He has been told that his crimes will be addressed in the morning. He has no intention of sticking around that long. His escape plan? A, uh, work in progress.)

"So there really ain't no ration?" he asks for at least the third time.

((Wildcard? Hit me up at terana ))

jayesh dara | original | diabel

[scientest]

ARIVAL

[The nakedness doesn't bother him - he wishes it were on a warmer day, though. In the first few hours, he can be found very close to the fringes of the Void and where it touches reality. He sits a respectable distance, curiously staring out at the nothingness.

If you come close, you may hear him a quiet: ] Daichi, is that you? [But of course, it can't possibly be him. The longer he stays so close, little mushrooms begin to sprout along his arms; odder fungus along his neck, his legs. It's a slow transformation, nothing too terrifying quite yet.

After this, he has a wander through the woods. Takes stock of the trees, the plants, looks so incredibly intrigued by it all. There is a point where he ducks down and rubs the dirt between his fingers.

Later, when he wanders into town, he waves cheerfullly to those at the wall, and then to whoever comes to greet him, asking, just cheerful:] Don't suppose there's somewhere I could get a pair of pants or some shoes - bit conscious catching a cold. [ha.]

CLINIC / ROOMING UP

[Finding a room isn't so terrible. He finds one that seems mostly unoccupied and makes himself at home. It's just him, quietly dosing off until someone else enters. ] Sorry, mate - wasn't sure which bed was occupied. Hope you don't mind.

[Later again, he makes the way to the clinic. There's really nowhere else to go; nowhere else where his skills would be useful. He knocks on the counter, takes quiet stock of the room before anyone comes. How does one apply for a job without the long, curated history Jay has spent his life building?

Well. ] Right, so, how do I go about applying here? Don't suppose there's a form, is there?

FESTIVAL

[They give him a leash, and he's not wholly sure what to do with it. As such, he tucks the handle into his back pocket and begins making his way through the festival.

You can spot him trying out the heart-shaped cookies, sipping the cinnamon gluwein and later, testing out the lime-glazed goat heart stew. In between he can be seen watching the live performances, and then, more prominently, taking an interest in the goods at each stall.

He takes a particular interest in the anal plugs, the bridles and then, of course, the collars and dildos on offer, fascinated by those made of wood. By this point, the gluwein has made him honest, and he muses, aloud: ] It's well sanded, but what about splinters? [This is clearly the most important question.

Later, when he's a little drunk, he wanders to the cages when his skin starts to feel too hot, too sensitive, and with a little sigh, undoes his trousers and slips his cock right in, waiting.]

NETWORK

So this telepathy thing - what's the usual timeframe before it stops being a bit of a headache?

Follow up: where can a man get a decent tea blend around here?

i intercept your arrival

[violentia]

[ There are footsteps not far behind him, slow and dragging, the faint muttering of what could be a lost soul. All Jay will see if he turns around is Norman, nude, parts of his body wrapped in red tendrils, urging him to keep moving forward. Closer to that void. Closer to that place where the man slowly sprouting from his own skin called for a name that Norman might have recognized, if he wasn't dazed. Covered in the insides of a giant spider he killed, too.

Norman tries to open his mouth, but it's just the same muttering. He's tired and the Unexplainable won't free him, won't let him retreat. ]

nancy wheeler | stranger things/dbd | (niez)

[gunshooting]

BOARDING HOUSE

The loose-fitting, nearly-sheer kimono had been a gift. A solicitous gift, Nancy knows, because the look that had accompanied the giving of it had been something between appreciative, rueful and expectant all at once. Amid all the strangeness, nudity and lack of reaction to it, this one thing only barely stuck in her mind as something to note.

Puzzling over all aspects of this turn of events will have to wait. There is a boarding house, and she is walking briskly towards it. Her feet are cold. Her hands are cold. Or really, she is cold and she knows this can't be trial because it doesn't feel like a trial, not any trial she's been summoned into and—

And first things first. A closed door. Sturdier clothing than a robe that feels like it would tear apart in a strong breeze.

When she reaches the boarding house, she takes the stairs two at a time. There's an open door at the end of the hall, and she is moving so fast that she can't quite avert a collision when someone else tries to cross the threshold a moment behind her.

"Sorry—!"

FESTIVAL

Last night, in the banya, Nancy had scratched at the dark, unfamiliar cursemark that had sprouted on her skin. She's scrubbed until the skin had gone red, but the mark hadn't budged. She'd wanted to pretend it didn't exist, but it's unavoidable. And it matters, enough so that she hadn't been able to argue her way out of the leather collar that had been clicked closed around her throat.

It had been one of the strangest conversations she'd had in her life. The pinch of concern on that villager's face as they'd gently but firmly explained roles and requirements and responsibilities.

Nancy had stuck her fingers under it almost immediately, testing the give. She'd been in motion for some time, walking fast as if she knew where she was headed, but it's only laps upon laps, watching and averting her eyes intermittently as she takes in all the happenings. The cages. The people playing at being furniture. The livestock and the people gone to work on those creatures.

When she finally stops moving, it's only to examine the cages. One stands empty, and Nancy prods a finger into the lock. The door creaks, opening just a little wider. She frowns, gaze lifting from it to the person being eagerly led into an empty cage down the street. As she watches, the door is closed. The silk curtains above are being drawn down.

And—

And she nearly leaps out of her skin when a hand comes down on her shoulder.

"No, thank you," she is already saying, side-stepping out from under that touch.

WILDCARD

If something else comes to mind, drop it here. I'll match prose or brackets.

boarding house

[ligature]

She collides with something--someone--that stumbles a few paces backward into the room upon impact, the words, "hey, careful," coming brusquely out of his mouth before he gets a chance to look, really look, at the girl in front of him. For half a second his heart turns over in his chest (the brown hair, the blue eyes), but he's not that lucky. He could never be that lucky.

Then he takes in her state of dress, and quickly (very quickly) averts his eyes, clearing his throat and stepping aside. "Sorry, I--you go ahead."

galamiła | oc | skala

[seastag]

one ⚔️ woods & boarding house arrival

[ Even in unfamiliar woods, Gala knows this sort of environment so intimately that she navigates it well all the same. Seems at home, even, to anyone who finds her out here, seven feet tall (not including the massive stag-like antlers that coil and curve out from her head, tangled in leaves and foliage from her journey), naked and dirty, but comfortable in her scarred skin, in the dirt of nature that paints her, in the easy way she steps, barefoot and unbothered in the wilderness. At ease in the warmth of her stag spirit's guidance within her, making all of this easier on her.

Whatever this is, it seems- too controlled, too familiar in her skin to be something new. Yet still she's marked with the symbol of the skala, low on her belly, almost pointedly over her womb - not that she knows yet, what it even means. ]

(a)
Move, or die.

[ It sounds almost like a threat, especially so from this woman, towering over most and looking like some sort of forest spirit. But what it really is - is a warning. You're standing much too close to a creature's den, and Gala knows the signs of a mother about to strike, even if you've stumbled about without a clue. ]

(b)
[ When at last Gala makes it to town, it's obvious, painfully so, that she's freshly arrived. She doesn't like being exposed like this, but she can't help but notice how little the people here seem to care about nudity. So she's naked still when she's in the common area of the boarding house, gathering whatever clothes that look like they'll fit her, and she's naked still when she enters what she thinks is an empty room.

She's wrong about the room, though.

So, either: it's empty but claimed, and when you return, there's a tall woman cleaning herself, wiping away smudges of dirt and forest bits, lest she ruin her new clothes immediately. Or it isn't, and Gala - gods, she just sighs. She's so fucking tired. ]

two ⚔️ festivities ( body heat & sensitivity prompts, nsfw, violence, livestock/animal sacrifice )

[ Resistant. That's how she approaches the festivities. And yet she's here all the same, coerced one way or another, observant of all that's happening around her, but tense. So, so tense.

It doesn't feel like awkwardness, though. It feels like stress, so thick in her that it's visible, how rigid her body is, how her knuckles are almost white from how tightly her fingers are curved into the arm of the seat she's taken up residence in, watching a performance of lust and violence alike, curious and distracted. And warm. Gods, she's warm, too warm, not used to the sort of things food here can do to a person, not realizing her choices in innocent cookies and a meal involving goat have cursed her to burn from the inside out, for her nerves to feel so sensitive that simply the brush of a teasing woman's fingers along her neck as she passes is enough to set her ablaze and shift in her seat.

Her shirt isn't even buttoned anymore. It's undone, completely, open, her skin shining in the candlelight with the sheen of sweat that won't go away, and Gala feels as though she's being tortured.

She can be approached here and now. Or...

Given enough time, she can be observed or approached after she's given in and taken a knife to one of the sacrificial birds, slicing it open with ease and finding the heart with the precision of a hunter, the encouragement around her palpable as the townsfolk rejoice in her participation, reward her by painting her torso (bare, she's lost her shirt entirely by now) in the crimson she's spilled. ]

three ⚔️ network/voice

Rubilykskoye.

[ A neutral greeting, from a steady voice. But it's also a test, of how the name of this new world sounds on her tongue. ]

This is not a place I've heard of before, but from what I've been told thus far, my experience is not unique.

[ The frustration she feels now slips through in the way she breathes out, a sigh that she doesn't quite get concealed the way she intends. ]

I am Stag-Knight Galamiła. I serve the house of St. Loe as our Daughter-Sea's personal guard, and I will rip every piece of this town apart if any harm befalls her without me at her side, while I am ripped from her service to I may instead be forced to play- whatever role it is this place desires of us.

Have what fun you want, but I'm not interested in dalliances.

[ But, zadza may come easier to her in another way, apparently, in what she asks next... ]

I need a blade.

wildcard ⚔️ ooc notes & such

( oc blurb: stag-knight - a knight, a paladin-esque warrior who drips in nature motifs, may or may not be walking around with massive stag antlers, and even without being in her spirit form that allows them, stands at 7ft tall. she is also the personal guardswoman of one Gilia St. Loe & will fight to the absolute death to defend her! takes her oath to the crown (to Gilia) extremely seriously, tends to be intense & intimidating upfront but has a soft core buried underneath.

find me on plurk at opalescent if you'd like to chat & plot! )

network

[clawandfang]

[ A new voice amidst the roiling tumult of voices and pointless chatter that occupies the other inhabitants of this place. A supposed knight - a fact that Khoriya files away in the back of his mind with some small measure of interest in favor of a far more important question: ]

What sort of blade?

norman byrd | original | niez

[violentia]

ARRIVAL, the woods
( cw: hallucinations, blood )

[ The gasp when he wakes makes the ground shake the branches above tremble, blood pour through the bark of every tree, red bubbling upward from the roots of grass, turning every rock and pebble into glowing embers—

—except it doesn't. None of it is happening. Another hallucination caused by the sigil carved in his skull, going haywire, fading as Norman frantically tries to center himself. He thinks the rest will fade with it, too, if he just closes his eyes and covers his face with his hands; he'll gasp again, this time in his bed, staring at his apartment ceiling.

That is not happening, either. All he can do is get up and walk, panting despite his slow pace, like the part of him that accesses energy is missing. Everywhere he goes, any trace of wildlife panics and flees. Something is very wrong with him; while they might not know what, exactly, they know better than to find out.

( ooc: Your character is free to sense that he's got traces of eldritch creatures in his head. The sensation would be akin to pollen, except. Very bad. If your character has animalistic characteristics they can also immediately consider him hostile for just existing. ) ]

—

THE FATHOMLESS DARK
( cw: hallucinations, cult, human experiments, blood, body horror, sentient monster parts, spiders, gore, animal death )

[ Just minutes after he was born, Norman was kidnapped. In his head sigils were carved to create a doorway to the Unexplainable and a lock along with it. With his skull sealed back shut, the child was named Ezra Becker, and chosen to be the future Father of the Apocalypse. When the Family fell apart, he ran off and named himself Norman Byrd.

But there was still a lock to another world in his head. Each time he opened it, bits and pieces trickled in and lodged in him like sediments, dormant — waiting — and they never left, even when he turned the lock to his personal cosmic horror again.

Nothing is behind that door now, only those parasitic little traces. They know their own. They hear the sound. The void calls and the Unexplainable beckons Norman to follow; to walk the wrong way in the woods, far from the birdsong and toward the skittering impatience of hungry creatures.

The air is heavy enough to feel like chains on his legs, but the Unexplainable keeps pushing him further still. More hallucinations, he thinks, naked and delirious, too tired to fight them off. Then the heavy thud of his knees on harsh ground, followed by a cascade of many more. Spiders, staring at him with impossibly large eyes, clicking with appetite. Hallucinations. That's all they can be.

One leaps without hesitation. Norman screams and the spider responds with a horrible noise. The others take it as a warning and retreat, one by one, leaving the unfortunate predator behind. Its mandibles are still crushing Norman's arm, but its body is being crushed by red, vein-like tendrils blooming through dilated pores from his body; squeezing, squeezing, trapping the spider no matter how much it convulses, squeezing —

There are pieces of it everywhere, insides staining Norman and his surroundings when it explodes. Blinded by the Unexplainable's defense, he finally falls over. The tendrils release the spider and begin to crawl toward the void, dragging Norman's body with them. ]

—

NETWORK
( cw: florida man idk )

[ He sounds. So very tired. This place has already been an ordeal and a half, y'all. ]

I don't suppose anyone's from Florida. Or a vampire.

[ A pause. To clarify, ]

It doesn't have to be both.

[ ooc: GENERAL WARNINGS for Norman here. ]

network

[dead_tongue]

Hiiii! I'm a vampire sometimes! But I'm Canadian, sorry. Florida scares the crap out of me.

[...so perky...]

Nate| Gen13 | SKALA

[captain_bitterness]

In the Woods:
cw: torture, body issues, government testing, death, killing

Nate is used to a certain amount of weirdness, you can't do what he does for a living and not be, so when he wakes up in the forest he isn't exactly surprised or worried.

What bothers him is that he is naked.

It's the one thing he hates and actively avoids, even at home. His body is a nightmare, covered in scars from torture and old battle wounds but worst of all is his limbs which were hacked off by the government long ago and then replaced by strange psycho-kinetic "phantom limbs". They light up the forest floor and area around him in an angry red glow, marking his location far too easily for his liking. Years of training kicks in and he moves quickly, forcing himself to ignore the fact that he's naked and slips through the forest silently as to avoid anyone but that might not be possible with so many new arrivals.

Boarding House:

Once Nate has found clothes he feels much more in control, as much as one can in a truly bizarre situation like this, but just being covered helps him be his usual calm, logical self. He wanders through the boarding house, an extremely tall man with cold dark eyes that seem to watch everything and everyone with calculated interest.

He doesn't look like the friendliest person but you never know, right?

Hearts Festival:

Nate isn't one for accessories but when the manacle's purpose is explained to him and attached to his right wrist he arches a brow, clearly a little intrigued not to mention grateful that he isn't being forced to wear a collar.

"Interesting customs you have here."

Interesting indeed but not shocking to someone like him, Nate has lived a unique life and it's not the first time he's been in a situation surrounded by such carnal games. He drifts through the festival like the world's biggest shadow, his face a mask of indifference at the raunchy fun and sacrifice all around him.

Until he gets to the curtained glory hole, here he tilts his head and makes a low, thoughtful noise.

"I hope they wash that curtain after." He muses to no one in particular.

curtains

[dead_tongue]

"They do."

Chirped helpfully from one side.

Iggy is about six-five in his fuck-me boots, looking like a creampuff in his outfit, and he looks just so happy to be where he is. ...outside a glory hole.

Jason Todd | DC | wilk

[lazarused]

in the woods somewhere

[ if there is one thing that jason knows, it's how to survive without anything, naked, alone. one of his teachers did this to him; dropped him in the middle of a frozen forest with nothing and said come back. or don't. let the bears eat you in his thick siberian accent.

jason didn't particularly feel remorse when he killed that one, but talia had told him it was a bad move, on his part. still. he learned two main things from that man: how to swear in russian well enough to sound like a native, and how to survive.

he is a big man, and he's covered in scars, so first; get dirty enough that anyone who sees him will not be able to tell about the scars, particularly the nasty y shaped one on his torso. he's not ashamed, but better not to have to answer that question.

then he starts looking for somewhere to find clothes.

he'll be friendly - ish - to anyone he finds naked in the woods, but there is a certain practicality about him. he makes a fire after a couple of hours just to get his bearings, so when that happens and he hears someone: ]

Don't lurk. I don't have the time.

festival

[ admittedly, getting the collar was not part of the plan.

admittedly, the plan went to shit when he realized this isn't even on the same realm as gotham. where is a magic user when he needs one? maybe this is fucking hell, and everything leading up to this with talia was just a distraction.

still, jason knows what to do. he found clothes, a place to stay, and he's going to take advantage of the best thing he's got going for him; messy curls and big eyes. he may be a big man but he's got the baby face of someone who just turned nineteen and an inability to stop blushing that he figures he should just use to his advantage. he has a cookie. he's sitting with a fucking collar at the edge of the festival, watching people without looking like he's watching people, and he has a fucking cookie. ]

Sorry, sorry, you want me to move?

[ He affects innocence pretty well. ]

jesus christ that's a fucking spider.

[ he is not here to fuck around. he is also not here to kill spiders. he just came out and saw-

-is that someone getting cocooned? or someone already-

he can hear the screaming and a part of him wants to walk away. this isn't his problem anymore. he needs to figure out how to get home-

-jesus christ, what if it's a kid?

jason can't get away from who he was, can he? once a do-gooder, he thinks-

-there's a lot of blood on his hands.

not this time. the spider that made this isn't in sight and he's got a knife, and he hisses:]

Stop squirming, shut up, I'm going to get you out.

[ if he cuts the person inside, it really is an honest to god mistake. ]

wildcard

[ surprise me! ]

ew a fucking spider

[whatam_i]

[Somehow, despite being the smartest man in Gotham, Edward Nygma manages to get himself stuck in some rather bad situations. Usually he is able to either run, stab or talk his way out of them, however it's hard to do that with a GIANT FUCKING SPIDER.

And so, poor Ed got wrapped up and left to literally hang out for a while.]

Mmmpfhmmmgghh!!!!

[His words are muffed by the spiders webbing but the tone is unmistakably impatient and demanding.]

'helios' | original | skala

[nixed]

ARRIVAL, downtown
( cw: local naked man, drugs sort of, gonna talk about blood a lot )

[ The kind travelers that pointed the way to town came tragically unprepared to dress any crash-landers today. Helios didn't make a fuss, though. It's just as well that few seem to mind the nudity when he waltzes in through the gates, immediately placing a mental pin on borrowing (ahem) nicer clothes some time after he gets his hands on what charity has to offer. Maybe in a day or two, after enough people have forgotten his face.

Little does he know.

Dinner time comes around. The meal's a luxury, as far as he's concerned, but it could be better. Ain't that always how it is? Therefore there's bound to be someone who knows where and how to get it, or knows a guy who knows a guy. ]

Hey. [ He motions with his head, tearing off a piece of bread. ] How much does priv-blood go for here?

FESTIVAL, makin' my way downtown
( cw: drugs, self-harm, option to have drink spiked with Magical blood™, aphrodisiac, nsfw )

[ Helios tugs at the wrist-strap like they put him in an ugly Christmas sweater, unconvinced disappointment gradually set aside for the festival's first impressions. Just the type of shit Insomniacs would throw every night of the week, is what it looks like to him, except they'd hide away in exclusive clubs with music thumping louder than your own thoughts. He'd be in his element if he hadn't been thrown into this role; better still if he could hang out with the organizers, side-by-side with attractive company and expensive substances.

Those days (nights) are a thing of the past, anyway. Have been since his first — so far the only — death, and he'd be lying if he thought Kaena being here wouldn't make things easier for him. She makes everything easier for everyone, as long as they make her happy.

He's got another trick in his pocket, though. Knifeplay's aplenty and surely no one's gonna think too hard about the tiny blade in his pocket, used to prick the tip of a finger, moving to tap a drop of blood into a cup that he'll try to offer to someone else.

ooc: Your character can either catch him trying to spike the drink and/or accept it. Info about priv-blood here, I kept it pretty vague so the effects can vary as you wish. Probably won't make much of a difference in the festival if you don't want it to, but he doesn't know to what extent yet, oop. Conflict over catching him trying to spike a drink is also welcome. ]

MONSTER, WAITED TOO LONG
( cw: Xenomorph horror, body horror, zombie-like state, vampirism [sort of], parasite, monster gestation and eruption from the chest, rapid growth, rapid decay, gore, possibly nsfw )

[ He's in the woods. Skin pale, smooth as leather, too tight on his body; hairless, eyes blackened, catching the reflection of light when it hits at the right angle. He roams, slouched, hands closed into fists, groaning as if he's in pain, or hungry, or fighting exhaustion. Maybe there's a part of the onlooker that thinks he can still be helped. That there's something slightly human in his eyes when they come close enough, like he's stunned to have found another person out here, like he thought he might have been the only one left alive in an apocalypse.

This strange, colorless copy of Helios reaches out, hand latching onto the first body part that it can catch. Fangs sprout from his palm and sink deep, revealing the mouth he'd hidden in his fists, it drinks quickly but doesn't need a lot. A taste, a sample, is enough to begin the real transformation.

ooc: Helios' Monster transformation. Same content warnings apply, including in the images linked. Also sorry for the world's longest cw list bajsdajfgu ]

arrival

[heave]

[ Bariyan has been picking slowly and disinterestedly at his food the whole time he's been sitting, but perks as soon as Helios slides into the seat next to his. He doesn't say anything at first, but observes the man quietly through the thick curtain of his hair - though he's not terribly sneaky about it.

He lifts that curtain as soon as Helios speaks to him and flashes a soft, confused smile. ]

Priv-blood. [ He rolls the term curiously around his mouth, cocking his head as if tasting it. ] I don't know. How much would you expect?

perpétua neiva | original | wilk

[bruxedo]

ARRIVAL, stupid woods!!
( cw: nudity, portuguese?? )

[ She can practically hear her mother lecturing in her ear. That woman's the kind of person who asks loaded questions, see — so, what spell did you mess up to end up here this time, instead of a much more objective, what happened. Granted, both would get an eyeroll and I don't know, but thankfully Cecília Neiva isn't here, just her daughter, wandering around naked and hoping there'll be civilization at some point. With her luck she'll just end up in some abandoned Schist village. Sigh. ]

Caralho p'ra esta merda…

[ A fuck this shit would also do. Rubbing her arms for warmth, scrunching up her nose because there's something very not correct in the air tonight — today? She can't even tell right now! ]

Ei! [ She continues in Portuguese, ] I'm a meiga, and I will punch your teeth out if you're messing with my dreams! I've got a meeting in the morning, sua besta! I need my… [ Losing steam, ] Beauty sleep. Eugh.

WORK, magic at the brothel
( cw: nsfw ota, consensual illusions & magic )

[ She's been here a while now. Decided she likes a few people, probably pissed off the rest by not caring much about their opinion. Such is the mind of a person raised to be a witch who then decided her true destiny was behind a very large desk in a very big office.

So how did she end up working at the brothel? Well, destinies change all the time. Trust her, she read that in her family's recipe book somewhere. Probably scribbled it herself, too.

Perpétua hasn't made a secret of her magic, and, with permission and a lot of supervision, has found ways to perfect weaving illusions. Those who come to her usually search for a little more than one room and person can provide; she makes a world out of these four walls and an oyster out of that world, to which she happens to hold the magical key. She can show them what the beach is like, they can pretend to be safely camping in the wilderness, she can just dress up the room in decadent decorations for their viewing pleasure.

Walk in and she'll put down a book on her seat (probably shouldn't leave that there, oops), standing in a kimono robe and — well. The rest is for whoever came in to find out, if that's what they're here for.

For new faces (not necessarily to the brothel) — ] Hey there. First time?

[ For those returning — ] Trying something new today?

brothel buddies

[dead_tongue]

[Iggy blinks. Looks around. Blinks again.]

You're new.

[He presses a hand to his chest.]

Oh my god, sorry, that was so rude of me! Sorry, I work here, I've been off a few days and I left something behind...

You're Void Touched, aren't you? Oh my goodness! There's so few of us who work here, you know. I was like, the first one maybe? And then there's just Kovacs. So it's so good to see more of us! I'm Iggy.

[Immediately friendly, he offers a hand.]

ransom drysdale | knives out ( diabel )

[drysdale]

i. woods;

He goes to sleep a well behaved resident of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution of Norfolk County and wakes up, not for the first time in his life, naked in the woods in the middle of winter. If there had been frost riming the ground while he slept in his cell, he wouldn’t know it, but the time of year doesn’t leave it out of the question. So Ransom’s first thought—

No, that’s not true. His first thought is to wonder if he’s gotten frostbite on his dick, also not for the first time in his life. It’s been over a decade since that fateful ski trip in Aspen, but that kind of thing tends to leave an impression on the male psyche. He checks, and everything’s intact, no numbness or weird tingling. If he feels relief it’s short-lived, it’s not quite dick-freezing weather anyway, his mind already on that second thought and each consecutive one, spinning out scenarios that might have gotten him here, on the outside, sans clothing, with what seems to be an actual fucking tattoo on his left clavicle, but with no sign of a healing process, no lingering headiness from being drugged, though he must have been.

He doesn’t get very far, which is saying something — if there’s one thing Ransom knows, it’s concocting scenarios. All he can be sure of is that he hasn’t been here for too long — the frost had only just begun to melt under his body — and whoever brought him here doesn’t want to kill him (at least not yet) but doesn’t want him getting far, either. He comes up with being hunted for sport, an idea he’s always found hilarious but that he assumes if it were a real thing he would’ve been invited to at some point. He laughs a little wildly, the sound fogging out in front of him.

”WHAT THE FUCK?” he yells with his arms spread, palms up. When there’s no answer he drops his hands to his hips. Or maybe you answer, and he will gladly take someone to blame. Otherwise, he contemplates his direction. Toward where more light penetrates the green gloom is the only way that makes sense if he actually wants to get out of here, but he still hesitates. Ransom is not unaware that, whatever the reason, he’s out, and he currently cuts a conspicuous figure.

He doesn’t want to get caught. At least not until—

Not until he finds Marta.

ii. room;

Ransom could really do without a roommate. His cellmate has been fine, as far as these things go, but he’s missed the luxuries of his previous life, like taking a shit in private. As soon as he’s handed a key and a folded stack of clothes he finds his room and shuts and locks the door behind him. Once he’s finally dressed he thinks about leaving again to eat, hungry but also loathe to sit restlessly inside the four walls of the room, but instead he parks himself on one of the beds, ready to glare at anyone who tries to come in.

Speaking of luxuries. Though it’s still far from his midcentury modern frame and king size mattress — probably gone now anyway, thanks, Mom and Dad — at least it’s not a twin bunk, and shit it feels good to be able to lie down and actually stretch out his limbs.

iii. festival;

Yeah, he never would’ve come up with this. It’s like a kink dungeon meets The Village with some excessively elaborate worldbuilding. Though he hasn’t seen anyone break character, Ransom is not at all convinced that’s not exactly what this is.

A smiling woman hands him a wrist-strap, and he lets it drop over his fingers, holding it up for perusal with wry insouciance. “Wow, special.” He pockets it anyway. He fends off — or more often ignores — any displays or offers to participate from the crowd, but when he comes across the Gluwein he accepts a mug readily. He’s never been much for wine — he prefers beer or liquor — but it’s been over a year since he’s had a drink and cons can’t be choosers. He eats too, but the wine still goes straight to his head.

”I used to have a higher tolerance before prison,” he says aloud, then shakes his head as though to dislodge that bit of oversharing.

ii. room

[whatam_i]

Locked doors aren't really a thing that can keep Edward out, after all, locks are just puzzles and he's the master of those. So it only really takes him about five seconds to pick the lock, using a stray needle he found on the ground of the boarding house, but when he opens the door he isn't expecting to find someone lounging in the room and he freezes.

"Oh."

Is all he says, obviously trying to think of an excuse.