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rubilykskoye mods ([personal profile] rubimods) wrote in [community profile] rubimemes2024-06-18 01:02 pm
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SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ 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 coming 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: nudity, D/S mechanics, public sex, aphro, death, missing persons.

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.

FAQSETTINGCALENDARRESERVESAPPLICATIONS



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 emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. 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, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.

As you explore, 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, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.

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.



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. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.

Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.

finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. 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. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.


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 breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks 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 or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!



THE FESTIVAL OF SUMMERTIDE

Summer is in full swing, which means it's time to take advantage of the warm weather! Around the town, various games are being played, some sport-based and some more concerned with creativity, problem-solving, sex, or 'fun'. Each round begins with a prayer to the Duchess. Not bowing your head in prayer may get you a few stares from locals, or worse-- opponents may be extra motivated to defeat someone so disrespectful to her Grace.

Each Thursday, buildings are festooned with wreathes of wildflowers, tables are laden with food and drink, and everyone is given colored sashes to wear over their clothes. Festival goers are not allowed to enter the main events unless they wear a sash, and to get a sash they must reveal their curse marks. Those marked with the curse of Wilk receive blue sashes, Diabel get red, Skala receive green and Niez are as ever adorned with grey.



Summertide, the locals are eager to explain, is a festival about adapting to the needs of others, and accepting things as they are. What perhaps isn't explained nearly so well is the expectations placed upon festival goers. Each event has a goal to be achieved, balanced on the point of competition or participation.

Tables overflow with refreshments, especially drinks and chilled fruit to cool the summer heat. Rubeans traditionally spice their foods with aphrodisiacs, something that is so culturally normal to them that they don't feel the need to mention it.

  • An outdoor feast starts the festivities, with commanders, who are expected to give orders, and followers, who must follow the whims of commanders, whatever they decree. Who commands and who follows is decided by the curse-marked sash participants wear. But there's a twist-- every three hours, a horn blows, and the roles switch at random; commanders become followers and vice versa. Many festival-goers, now in a position of command, are eager to get petty revenge on the followers now at their mercy.


  • Fencing! For health reasons, any cut must be properly cleaned, and kept free of contaminants; for this reason, fencers are expected to compete fully naked. Otherwise, you might get some cloth in your cuts!


  • Wrestling! Wrestlers are well-oiled for the matches, making it hard to keep your grip on a slippery opponent. The winner of the match is declared when they have their opponent pinned... and at that point, the winner can do anything they like to the loser until they can get away, if they even want to.


  • A game going on throughout the town, regardless of whether someone consents to participation, is something the locals call Lock and Key. The rules are explained after you are grabbed and tied by your wrist (or ankle, whatever was available) to someone else: the locked binding tying you two together is blessed to be unbreakable until you each draw one another's blood... or find the key, stashed somewhere in the town. Good luck!


  • Anyone who refuses to play along will be ejected from the festivities, and made to run through the crowd while being whipped with thin wooden sticks.


  • Throughout all of this, some of the implementation of these games may occasionally come across as either overly cruel or overly kind. The common people of Rubilykskoye are of two minds when it comes to the treatment of newcomers: some think you are beneficent, sent to fix their problems and free them of your woes. These people, called Blackguards, will do their best to make sure your participation in the games is not marred by cheating, excessive violence, or pain. But others, called the Zlatniki, think little of the outsiders coming into their lands, and will do their best to twist their native traditions toward cruelty and vindictive unfairness when it comes to the Void-touched.

    writer's block?
    If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try participating in events, having your characters go against opponents, be drafted into the games against their will, or watching others perform!


    NIGHT OF THE HUNTSMEN

    Rumor moves through town quickly: two nights ago, a hunting party went out into the wood, and no one has seen them since. Anyone who wants to prove their worth to the community is encouraged to join the search parties going out to look for them; in Rubilykskoye, those who provide food for the community are highly prized, especially when they brave the woods to do so.

    You see, the woods aren't entirely safe. Near the town, it's nothing to be alarmed by, and of course the search parties find nothing there. They must delve deeper, and that's where you end up. 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.


    Many peel off, going back to the town proper. The searchers become fewer and fewer. Maybe some of them are going back home, but maybe they're getting lost. Eventually, you walk around a large tree, and you're alone. It's just you and 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.



    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?

    Yet the further you go, the more convinced you become that the missing hunters are near by. You're sure you can hear them on the wind, their voices calling out between the trees. Did you just see something out of the corner of your eye? You have to find them. You have to make all this darkness worth it.

    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! Feel free to find the bodies of the missing hunting party-- or hallucinate that you did.


    RELEASE YOUR INNER BEAST

    Something's wrong here.

    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.


    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
    Early one morning, alarm bells are rung. The people of Rubilykskoye are quick to explain while boarding up their windows and locking their doors: The Szymanskiy brothers have all transformed! Their inner beasts - duchozweirz, the natives call it - take the form of creeping, skeletal horrors. The beasts hunt and to kill, ripping their prey apart, but that's not all they can do.

    Those who are lucky enough to escape one of the Szymanskiy triplets will leave feeling... changed. The psychic residue these monsters give off cause the afflicted to seek out danger with reckless abandon; they will run toward the monster, into fights, and refuse safety when offered. They must be restrained in a secure location to wait for the pheromones to wear off.

    (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?
    hunts: (Default)

    mina grimm (original)

    [personal profile] hunts 2024-06-18 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)
    HUNTSMEN
    [ mina knows monsters.

    the last time she had to fight one naked was three years ago, when she was woken unceremoniously in her sleep by a goblin trying to get the jump on travelers in an inn. they hadn't expected a hunter to be there. she'd taken up her sword and run it through, pinned it to the wall and hung it there like a tapestry. then she'd found the others, who'd had better luck in the rooms they'd picked, and snapped whatever necks she'd needed to.

    she does not have her sword. she does not have anything with her.

    when she woke up in the wood, picked herself up off the ground and searched the nearby area for her belongings, she'd come up empty. no surprise. the smell of the trees was unfamiliar. disconcerting. if it wasn't a dream, someone had brought her here. why would it want her armed? quiet as a mouse, she struck off in a random direction. one was as good as any. just keep the heading. she'd find something.

    'something' turned out to be a nest. a web, more accurately. she has a stick big enough to defend herself, scavenged from the forest floor, but what good is that going to do?

    a. she approaches the web, but misses the thin silk threads on the ground that stick to her feet and ankles. then, it has her. snatches her up by her foot and ratchets her into the air, dangling by that one foot, blonde hair spilling down.

    she swings the stick towards her ankles to try and sever the line, but it's too thick, too strong. that's terrifying. she could throw one of these trees and not see where it landed—how tough was this spider's webbing?
    ]

    Son of a bitch. [ more webs spin towards her, trying to restrain her, but she swings out with the stick to keep the spider at a distance as it appears, huge and red and angry.

    b. or she comes across a stranger already caught in the web, the stick rested against her shoulder as she keeps her distance, surveying their predicament.
    ] This is a sticky situation you've found yourself in.


    SUMMERTIDE
    [ they give her a red sash before she can ask what they're about. but around the festival, mina figures it out. the other people with red sashes, they have the same mark on them that she does.

    i. she stops someone else with a red sash, with a visible diabel mark:
    ] What is this? Where did you get it?

    [ ii. when she stops at the feast for dinner...

    ii-a. she is first made a commander. this suits her very well. at first, she keeps to herself but to bark grim demands from the followers. perfunctory. reserving herself in the corner because she knows that no one wants to be bothered with her.

    but then a follower offers her more than food, and mina is struck into a momentary silence, cup of kvas half-raised to her lips. she sets it down slowly.
    ] What is it you want from me?

    [ ii-b. unfortunately, by the time she gets in the hang of giving orders to followers freely, of demanding food and drink and delighting in the way they obey, the horn blows. she looks up, confused, as one of the followers yanks her tankard from her and shoos her out of her seat. ] Hey!

    [ this suits her not half so well. especially not the glee with which those same people she'd already been ordering around now spitefully return the favor. ]


    SZYMANSKIY
    [ she'd been running at the beast. clothed, now, but unarmed. it looked stupid, she realizes. it had looked very stupid, but looking stupid was not the same as being stupid. ]

    I have done this before. [ she reasons with the person who has bound her in ropes to a fence post. ] I can help, if you let me.

    [ some part of her, resentful, wants to see what happens if they try to handle it on their own, without a hunter to save them. good riddance. but every bone in her body is possessed with the need to protect these humans. it's what she was made for. it's the only thing that she's got going for her. she thrashes against the binds when it becomes clear that reasoning won't work. ]

    If you do not release me now, I will make sure you regret it.


    WILDCARD
    [ ooc; if none of these work, feel free to ping me [plurk.com profile] protects for something else! mina is giving geralt of rivia, dean winchester, steve rogers anyway. she's a huge anti-monster racist at this canon point, so pls exercise caution with your openly monstrous characters if you're not up for that! also her pb is in flux atm so be prepared for radical changes mid-thread. ]
    romanholliday: (a sweet girl)

    lucrezia borgia | the borgias | skala

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)
    [ooc: big content warnings for canon incest!]

    i. arrival: the town gates
    It is well after dusk by the time Lucrezia makes it to the gates of the town, stepping gingerly on bare feet with her arms clutched tightly across her breasts. A lone woodsman had gifted her with the cloak off his back when he'd come across her in the woods, but whatever else he'd been prepared to give her he would only part with in kind, and she'd fled from him even even before he could set a hand to her arm. Now, with each step inflicting new misery upon her feet, she almost regrets being so precious about a body her own family has seemed perfectly content to barter with for years. Maybe she'd at least have a pair of shoes.

    When she spots someone--you, perhaps?--ahead of her just within the town gates, she forces herself to walk forward quickly, wincing with each step. "Hello? Pardon me," she calls out, "I think I'm lost."

    ii. arrival: the boarding house
    She is lost, as it turns out. Lost, and a stranger in a foreign land.

    Someone has taken pity on her by the time she reaches the boarding house doors and found her way inside. Now she wears a simple white linen dress, and though she has socks and a pair of serviceable shoes to go with it, the pain in her feet is too distracting for her to try walking in them. Instead she's found a little corner of the common area next to a window to sequester herself away in; tenderly, she examines the cuts and blisters on the soles of her feet with transparent dismay on her face.

    iii. the festival of summertide
    Now this is much more like it--a festival to lift her spirits, and embolden her to do what she does best: land herself in all sorts of trouble.

    The green sash she wears across her white dress is an eye-catching splash of colour that brings out the flecks of aquamarine in her blue eyes; at least, that is what one of the many festival vendors told her while cajoling her into accepting a gift from his stall in the form of a necklace sporting a string of freshwater pearls that plunge suggestively towards her décolletage. She has accepted it with beaming delight, of course, and is toying absently with one of the pearls as she seats herself across from another festival attendee at one of the tables lined with food and drink.

    "Who am I to be, now?" she asks her new companion while reaching for one of the chilled drinks. She favours them with a cheeky smile over the rim before sipping. "Commander or follower? I've lost track I'm afraid."

    iv. wildcard
    [none of these work for you? hit me with anything, i'll roll with it! please also feel free to ping me @ [plurk.com profile] ragweed if you'd like to hash out something specific.]
    chuffle: (Daphne - la playa)

    Daphne Morales-Kocchar | Original | wilk

    [personal profile] chuffle 2024-06-18 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
    in the woods somewhere

    [While it's not the first time that Daphne has woken up naked in the woods, it certainly isn't something that she likes to make a habit. In this particular case, though, it's odder than usual, because when she takes a breath, nothing smells familiar. In fact, it doesn't smell like there's even a road nearby, which is-

    -strange. When was the last time that happened? She thinks back and concludes that maybe there were some places near Bhutan, on that six months she took to see the world. Which is funny, because last she checked, she was in London.

    Well.

    She certainly doesn't have any particular fear about wandering around naked, and so she starts towards where she thinks people might be. She definitely hears someone rustling about.]


    I hope you have at least a shirt with you!

    [She calls it out loudly enough to be heard.]

    dinner

    [Once she's found some clothes (she's wearing a dress with a lace up bodice, this is full ren faire) and gotten to dinner, she's faced with the communal meal challenge: finding a place to sit. She's reminded of her first day of high school and snorts with laughter.

    When someone nearby turns she tips her head.]


    Do you think that if we sit with the popular kids too soon, we'll be bullied until we learn our place, or is that just me?

    [Maybe that joke is out of place, but, well. This place is so strange. She's pretty sure she walked through the umbra or something equally weird and now she's stuck in something the spirits consider "funny."]

    Summer festival

    [Daphne is having a good time and it shows, because she has tied her blue sash (she still doesn't quite know what this mark thing is about) into her hair in a big blue bow, and she's eating something that smells absolutely divine when she's grabbed by the arm. It's proof of her good mood that she just laughs when she's cuffed to someone.

    In fact:]


    So, how do you want to play this? I'm up for a seek if you are.

    [There is a little teasing in her tone, something this side of seductive, because she feels good, and frankly, she could use both a game and a game.]

    Huntsman

    [She's not sure, if you were to ask her, why she decided to come out. Curiosity. Curiosity and the cat. She can feel something, like an itch under her skin, although if it's real or if it's just her imagination playing tricks on her, she doesn't know. She heard the rumors.

    She knows that rumors can be true.

    She's out there in the dark when she hears two things - someone stepping, and the clicking noise of what she thinks is a spider. Certainly she's met enough of the ananasi to know what that sound is, and she reaches forward through the dark to grab the person walking nearby and pull them close to her, her hand covering their mouth.]


    Shush-

    [She says it right in their ear, urgent and desperate.]

    There's something in the tree-

    [A moment later there's a crash as something falls out of the tree, and Daphne is scurrying them both back, just letting go of whoever she grabbed.]

    Holy-


    [ooc; or wildcard it, I'm easy! Please feel free to PM me or message me on plurk @ chelicerae]
    Edited 2024-06-18 20:46 (UTC)
    romanholliday: (hat again!)

    dinner! c:

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
    [the person she turns to address turns out to be a petite girl blessed--or cursed--with more blonde curls than any one person should ever have to deal with. she's dressed simply enough in a white linen dress, though the string of freshwater pearls around her throat looks rather fancy.

    Lucrezia pauses mid-step to blink up at Daphne quizzically, though she's quick enough to dimple a teasing smile just the right side of saccharine back at her. then she lifts her chin and offers out her arm; very gallant of her.]
    Come sit with me, then, and I shall protect you.

    [with what, exactly? other than the power vested in her cheery smile, that is.]
    chuffle: (Daphne - conversationalist)

    [personal profile] chuffle 2024-06-18 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
    [Daphne looks down at her; she looks like someone carved her out of marble and then blessed her to life. It's an odd thing, but Daphne thinks she's kind of cute, in all honesty.

    There's that dimple, and Daphne laughs a little.]


    You want to protect me? From mean people who want to call me names?

    Chica, what's yours?
    romanholliday: (sunshine girl)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
    [watching Daphne's incredulity morph into a bit of easy laughter, Lucrezia's smile only broadens.] And why not? If this is a new world for all of us, perhaps I wish to be a knight-errant like in the stories.

    I'm Lucrezia. [she tips a lady-like little curtsy.] What should I call you?
    maledico: (GALIAESTOMNIS)

    i. cw discussion of slavery. also. misogyny.

    [personal profile] maledico 2024-06-18 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
    Nudity on a man is nothing. Vorenus feels no shame, nor any reason to cover up. However, this finely bred girl-child-- a house slave by the look of her Gaulish breeding-- offends a very Catonian modesty. Were the great Censor still alive, well.

    He is not.

    "Woman," Vorenus' voice is low, a growl. "You shame your master with this display." He reaches for her pale white arm. "Let me see your neck."

    A runaway would have some sort of collar, unless this is the first time, and she has not yet been caught.
    Edited 2024-06-18 22:57 (UTC)
    poleaxed: joke; anger. (you said you only wanted friends)

    huntsmen, b.

    [personal profile] poleaxed 2024-06-18 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
    [This is the fourth time Joan's been tied up this week, and it isn't even fun. She's making bird noises into the underbrush, hoping Khoriya will magically know it's her and pull her out of this when some naked chick appears.]

    Are you a fucking cartoon? [All the keep-calm deep-breathing exercises have, at this point, failed.] Get me out of here and I'll put you back in the Sunday Strip where you belong, you fucking flasher.
    romanholliday: (spicy)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
    Animal fright seizes in her throat, but Lucrezia's days of weeping or begging for mercy when a man mishandles her are long behind her. Terror brings out her teeth.

    "How dare you!" She yanks her arm out of this strange man's reach, backing up swiftly across dirt and stone. "I am the Pope's daughter--how dare you speak to me this way!"
    chuffle: (Daphne - sideeye)

    [personal profile] chuffle 2024-06-18 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)
    [Daphne does not curtsy, but she does smile, and put her arm through Lucrezia's, because why not? It seems like a sweet thing to do, and she's a sweet girl.]

    Daphne.

    [Classical names, all.]

    You might be a touch short for a knight-errant. We'll have to get the armor custom made.
    nepotist: (pic#16719837)

    [personal profile] nepotist 2024-06-18 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
    [The panic that Cesare feels at seeing Lucrezia is overwhelming. He misses her, of course he does. He thinks of her every day. But this world is cursed and awful and it is his burden to bear, not hers.

    So when he rushes towards her, he is fiercer than he intends. He grips her firmly by the elbow, not tightly enough to hurt her, but powerful nonetheless, pulling her to standing and moving her like a ragdoll into a corner, away from the others. He hugs her tightly once they have some vague semblance of privacy and murmurs against the top of her head.]


    I love you. You should not be here.
    romanholliday: (worried!!!)

    cw: canon-typical borgia dynamics 😬 (sibling incest)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
    [as has always been the case in her life, there exists the sense of herself that she has when Cesare is away, and then there is the maelstrom that inhabits her when he is near. as such, Lucrezia has only a moment's warning to recognize Cesare's approach through the crowd by sound of his footsteps alone, and then she's swept up in the tide again. like almost literally, he's got her by the elbow before she can offer her would-be dinner date so much as a fond farewell, and then there is nothing but the press of his body against and around hers, enveloping her like a vice.]

    Cesare--!

    [she goes up onto her toes to throw her arms around his shoulders, to bury her hands in his hair, and kiss his mouth. you know, a very normal way for a sister to greet her brother.]
    nepotist: (pic#16739389)

    [personal profile] nepotist 2024-06-18 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)
    [A kiss is not unusual for the two of them. But how it is done is strange. The energy is foreign in a way that makes him instinctively pull back, his brow furrowing as he takes her face in his hand.]

    Sis... [He tries to form words for a second, fails, before finally uttering out:] We should get you home. [Home to the dorms, at least, away from this foolish party and its dangers.]
    romanholliday: (oh u)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-18 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
    I will be tall in spirit to make up for it. [Lucrezia tucks her hand across her new friend's forearm, then gives her head a little dip towards an unoccupied pair of seats near the window.

    primly (or faking primness well enough, given she's still trying to temper her smile),]
    Shall we promenade, Daphne?
    fiat: that's why i'm dad's favorite. (Fvtgy8n)

    daemon targaryen | hotd | ota.

    [personal profile] fiat 2024-06-19 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
    a. OUT OF THE WOODS.
    A man walks naked out of the treeline. He is six feet tall, pale as death, with hair roughly the color of his skin. A livid splash of red stains his torso, blood splattered over his body. He's carrying a tree branch like a club, but he drops it at the feet of the first person he comes across.

    It's bloody as well. Hair seems to be clumped on a protruding edge.

    "There's a dead boy in the woods."
    b. FEASTING.
    Skala, of course Skala, bright and green against his throat. He is only fond of the color insofar as it gets him what he wants. One black-booted foot finds a bent back-- cleaning up a mess, bowing to someone else, it hardly matters. A follower is a follower. He folds his legs and uses you like a footstool.

    "If you want to get up," he says, "you'll have to make it interesting for me."
    c. LOCK AND KEY.
    His pale wrist to yours, and his look of reptilian displeasure. He tugs harder.

    He takes out a knife. Where he got it hardly matters. "Hold still, or this might really hurt."
    d. Wildcard.
    [I'm open to whatever, especially threads where Daemon isn't coming out on top. Daemon is a very bad man with very little sense of consent, and while I'm not going to push that angle too hard on a TDM, please consider reading his content warnings, especially if you're canon unfamiliar.]
    romanholliday: (hat!)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-19 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
    [the rejection stings; Cesare might have caused her less pain, had he struck her. but he never would, because he is the brother who loves her.

    Lucrezia stares back at him in wounded confusion, though wounded pride quickly wins out. she turns her face out of his hand and steps backward, though she only succeeds in pressing herself up against the alley wall, insists in a watery snap,]
    I will not. [a broken-hearted sort of obstinance sets in.] You interrupted me in the middle of my conversation, and I'm not finished with my wine.
    nepotist: (pic#16719841)

    [personal profile] nepotist 2024-06-19 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
    You have had plenty of wine already, Sis... [Enough that she thinks her behavior is reasonable, and that she is justified in sulking like a child when it does not go her way. The furrow in his brow deepens.]

    I am not asking. We can talk in the dormitories.
    Edited 2024-06-19 00:11 (UTC)
    minuteofangle: (002)

    lock and key

    [personal profile] minuteofangle 2024-06-19 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
    Oh. This is the game they're playing today, huh? Gabe's grin flashes teeth as he tilts his head, cycling his tech and sizing the other man up. Tall fucker. And with a sure hand on that knife.

    "How fast are you?" Gabe drawls, eyebrows raising behind his sunglasses. "Just curious."

    The moment that fucker so much as breathes, Gabe's kicking him straight in the dick. He's already got his own knife hidden against his palm. Ready to punch somewhere tender.
    seaboard: (⌜𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚔⌟)

    ii arrival

    [personal profile] seaboard 2024-06-19 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
    What she was there for, was to meet someone, run errands and drop off goods she had promised, and a dozen other things certainly.

    All of which are immediately forgotten. Gilia takes one look at the woman in no more than a shift, hardly dressed enough to shield her from the sun outside and puts everything else aside.

    "My lady, you must be new. Spirit's bless, we need to get you something better."

    Without thinking, she unpins her own head-scarf from her hair, and steps forward to wrap it around Lucrezia. "Allow me?"
    seaboard: (⌜𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗⌟)

    out of the woods

    [personal profile] seaboard 2024-06-19 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
    With her cottage not far from said woods, it is not hard to miss him on her way into town for the day.

    A woman raised to no violence, the sight of him once would have terrified her, bloody and proud of himself. But of late, it has been worn down and the one exhausted thought: I am going to need to start carrying spare shifts with me.

    "There will be more." is all she can say as he stands in front of him. Tall for a woman, some 5'10 even before all of her curly hair that peeks out wildly from her hair veil, so that she can meet his gaze evenly. "Come. There is a river. Let's get you clean and I have something for you to wear." A pause, because he is just so distinctive. "Are you what they - Targaryen? Their clan name is Targeryn? If so, I suspect I may know your kin."
    hunts: (Default)

    [personal profile] hunts 2024-06-19 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
    Give me your shirt.

    [ she doesn't acknowledge the rest. it's not worth her energy, really. but mina isn't moving yet, just standing comfortably at the edge of the webs, watching. evaluating. ]
    chuffle: (Daphne - you're a cute)

    [personal profile] chuffle 2024-06-19 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
    [This little white girl has spirit, she has to give it to her. But Daphne is pleased just the same; why not indulge both her own pleasure and this girl at once?

    She gives a nod, as they head for that spot.]


    I suspect you might be more comfortable with this place than I am.

    [Although admittedly, Daphne does not seem ill at ease. She doesn't seem bothered or ruffled. She's as cool as any cat could be, and there's a dimple with her own smile (just one, on one cheek)]
    romanholliday: (pink like the inside of your 🫢)

    [personal profile] romanholliday 2024-06-19 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
    [Lucrezia does not want to go back to the dormitories. she wants to go back out into the city, reclaim her wine glass and some semblance of the good cheer and happiness she'd experienced before Cesare took it away from her. but she doesn't want to cause a scene, and so without a word she turns on her heel and walks off in the direction of the boarding house. she clearly expects him to follow her.]
    poleaxed: joke; anger. (you said you only wanted friends)

    cw sexist language.

    [personal profile] poleaxed 2024-06-19 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
    [Is this refreshing, after a legion of bleeding hearts cooing over every bump or bruise? Is it funny? Is it sad?]

    [Joan is the cartoon, now.]

    [She pulls off her shirt, bunches it up, and throws it in Mina's direction.]
    Bitch.