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sticksandbones2024-02-01 10:46 am
sticksandbonesmods) wrote in sticksandbones2024-02-01 10:46 am
Entry tags:
EVENT 009
RULER OF MY HEART
HOW SWEET IT IS
As time ticks on in that strange, wobbly way it does in this place — where the nights feel like they last days, and the days feel like they’re only a few hours long — the fog, ever so gradually, rolls back in, until it’s that oppressive black wall it normally is. It means no more trips into the greater forest for the time being, though the surrounding ring of treeline around the Grove and the burned town to the north remains readily accessible.
The woods, now awake and alert, sends its regards with the occasional roar of a beast in the far distance, and the occasional biblically-accurate deer wandering into the Grove proper to nibble on grasses starting to spring up through the snow. Speaking of things springing up through the snow, there are some new trees near the riverbank, sporting perfectly normal lemons that are growing perfectly normal eyeballs. It’s fine, they’re edible, although they don’t seem to be native. Hmm.
All is peaceful thus far, until you open your dresser drawer. Suddenly, a little creature flies out at you, or cries out angrily because you woke it up. Perhaps, that creature climbs on you instead, shuffling into your pocket to snuggle up. Or, maybe you lay down for a nap, and your pillow feels just a touch lumpier than normal, and when you move your head, something squeals at you. No matter where you find them, even if they’re being a nuisance and eating your shoelaces, these creatures are harmless: they’re merely cold, and you, a Warm Thing, will now be their space heater.
The woods, now awake and alert, sends its regards with the occasional roar of a beast in the far distance, and the occasional biblically-accurate deer wandering into the Grove proper to nibble on grasses starting to spring up through the snow. Speaking of things springing up through the snow, there are some new trees near the riverbank, sporting perfectly normal lemons that are growing perfectly normal eyeballs. It’s fine, they’re edible, although they don’t seem to be native. Hmm.
All is peaceful thus far, until you open your dresser drawer. Suddenly, a little creature flies out at you, or cries out angrily because you woke it up. Perhaps, that creature climbs on you instead, shuffling into your pocket to snuggle up. Or, maybe you lay down for a nap, and your pillow feels just a touch lumpier than normal, and when you move your head, something squeals at you. No matter where you find them, even if they’re being a nuisance and eating your shoelaces, these creatures are harmless: they’re merely cold, and you, a Warm Thing, will now be their space heater.
I REALLY LIKE YOU
One of Ydalir’s secret passions is cooking. You would not know this, because she doesn’t have the ability to eat, but that doesn’t mean she lost the ability to cook. A holiday is coming, you see, and it’s tradition for everyone to partake in cute chocolates and have candlelit dinners! (She will not be providing the dinners, that’s on you.)
What feels like early on in the month, Ydalir will approach everybody with a box of chocolates customized for each person with their favourite flavours. For those of you who don’t eat human food, don’t worry: These are safe for consumption for vampires and robots alike.
Like with most things here, though, things are not as they seem. Eating one of these chocolates suddenly makes you feel very, very cuddly, like suddenly you wouldn’t care who you snuggled up to right now so long as you were comfortable. With the candy in your system, you feel affectionate to anyone who you come across, even if you may not have liked them previously.
As it turns out, mixing magic with cooking makes a potion. Ydalir swears up and down she didn’t mean it, but enjoy your cuddle-chocolates anyway!
What feels like early on in the month, Ydalir will approach everybody with a box of chocolates customized for each person with their favourite flavours. For those of you who don’t eat human food, don’t worry: These are safe for consumption for vampires and robots alike.
Like with most things here, though, things are not as they seem. Eating one of these chocolates suddenly makes you feel very, very cuddly, like suddenly you wouldn’t care who you snuggled up to right now so long as you were comfortable. With the candy in your system, you feel affectionate to anyone who you come across, even if you may not have liked them previously.
As it turns out, mixing magic with cooking makes a potion. Ydalir swears up and down she didn’t mean it, but enjoy your cuddle-chocolates anyway!
LET’S STAY TOGETHER
Sometimes, when you touch another person, your mind goes elsewhere. This isn’t a result of the chocolates, but rather some other force at work. If you see two people asleep somewhere — the ground, the couch, the kitchen counter — it’s best to leave them where they are, unless you want to risk passing out with them and seeing what they see. They’ll wake up in a little while.
What those who get dragged into their own minds see depends on the person, and what lies within their heart. These “heartspaces” are made up of core memories to the participants — important locations, emotional states given form, meaningful items, or anything else, really. When in contact with another person, these heartspaces will combine into one, perfectly interactable and wanderable at your leisure. Touching objects within these spaces will play a core memory before your eyes, or even change the scenery a bit, depending on whose heart it is you’re messing with.
Perhaps now is a good time for bonding and learning about one another, in the comfort and privacy of your own minds. After all, you won’t exit the heartspaces for quite a bit.
What those who get dragged into their own minds see depends on the person, and what lies within their heart. These “heartspaces” are made up of core memories to the participants — important locations, emotional states given form, meaningful items, or anything else, really. When in contact with another person, these heartspaces will combine into one, perfectly interactable and wanderable at your leisure. Touching objects within these spaces will play a core memory before your eyes, or even change the scenery a bit, depending on whose heart it is you’re messing with.
Perhaps now is a good time for bonding and learning about one another, in the comfort and privacy of your own minds. After all, you won’t exit the heartspaces for quite a bit.
PAIN IN MY HEART
…just try not to break anything while you're there.
It might be an accident. Maybe you walk backwards into a table containing a framed photograph, and that photo falls and the glass breaks, the picture inside the frame ruined. Maybe you broke that cheaply-made but still-important toy while fiddling with it. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t an accident at all: You broke that thing on purpose, you punched through that wall, you set that fire.
Whatever broke the thing in question doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is that the memory associated with it begins to fade away like smoke on the wind. Fixing the broken object will bring that memory back, but failing to fix it before you wake up from the dream will have that memory gone forever.
Although, there are some pretty bad memories out there… if the memory broken was terrible, or if the item in question showed someone a dark secret you didn’t want them to know… shouldn’t it stay gone?
It might be an accident. Maybe you walk backwards into a table containing a framed photograph, and that photo falls and the glass breaks, the picture inside the frame ruined. Maybe you broke that cheaply-made but still-important toy while fiddling with it. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t an accident at all: You broke that thing on purpose, you punched through that wall, you set that fire.
Whatever broke the thing in question doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is that the memory associated with it begins to fade away like smoke on the wind. Fixing the broken object will bring that memory back, but failing to fix it before you wake up from the dream will have that memory gone forever.
Although, there are some pretty bad memories out there… if the memory broken was terrible, or if the item in question showed someone a dark secret you didn’t want them to know… shouldn’t it stay gone?
SPARK NOTES
CLICK TO EXPAND!
HOW SWEET IT IS
The fog is back. The creatures are clinging to you because they're cold. The eyeball lemons are, uh... lemon...y. Enjoy your completely normal slice of nature.
I REALLY LIKE YOU
Ydalir has made everybody chocolates! They're delicious and induce feelings of affection and a deep need to cuddle others. Surely this won't go terribly awry. Also, she's very sorry.
LET’S STAY TOGETHER
Sometimes, touching someone else takes you to a combined mental space made up of the important things to you and the person you touched. You can touch things within the space to play memories, or explore the environment together. Outside, you're just asleep on the floor somewhere probably, so hopefully no one trips over you.
PAIN IN MY HEART
Be careful in the heartspaces. Anything you break will take a relevant memory with it. If you can find a way to repair it, the memory will come back. Although, sometimes memories need to stay gone, don't they? Maybe leaving it broken is okay?
OOC
Happy February! The mod team will not apologise for the amount of pink in this event log. If you'd like to plot with people for this event, head over to OOC plotting. We will allow you to make up various plantanimal creatures for this event, they don't have to be like the images linked as examples. Have fun, enjoy creatures, they're here to stay. Reminder this month will have Heimrquest, so if you want to sign up, please do so on the OOC plotting post.
UPDATES
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SUBMISSIONS
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It seems that Razlo ended up dead-on the mark, with Wolfwood left grunting under his breath as he pushes himself stiffly up onto his arm, the pool of blood trembling with the way his weight shifts unevenly on the table. He doesn't know where the blood came from or what it's really supposed to mean, not so much as he does that pouch full of vials. Those he's intimately familiar with, and for a wild moment, he wonders if he could get away with stealing a few. He won't, not when Razlo is right fucking there, but still...
The sight of it, emblazoned with a cross, fills him with dread despite not having the proper context clues to connect it to the rest of the scene.
After a moment, he manages to push himself up and off the table, staggering as he shifts upright. He's fine- more than a little bruised for sure with Razlo's blood beneath his nails- but otherwise...fine. More or less. He, at the very least, thinks he gets what Razlo meant now.]
How should I know? [He scoffs.] As if I even care. I don't live for his approval.
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Why the hell not?! He lived for us! For your ungrateful ass!
[since he can't attack wolfwood, he's at least going to start throwing these chairs -- seats of the other masters, none of whom understood even a fraction of the bond chapel formed with his disciples. but even the reverberating clang of them slamming into the dream-floor isn't satisfying.
if nick couldn't tell, ol' raz has never before met a problem he couldn't solve with violence.]
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He's deliberately going easy on him. He's avoiding doing too much damage. He's even missing Wolfwood with those chairs, or...he's missing hitting him anywhere vital, he thinks as he quickly ducks out of the way to avoid getting his head clipped off his shoulders. When he rises back up, he feels his self preservation instincts battling directly with the urge to be spiteful.
Honestly, this guy's starting to really get on his nerves.]
Ungrateful? You really don't get it.
[He huffs, bringing his hands down at his sides. He doesn't have the Punisher with him, making this situation a lot more dangerous than it needs to be.
...which is exactly why he thought to buy himself an actual handgun, one that he pulls from his side and levels at Razlo's chest.]
You know exactly why I'm still here, and it was never for Chapel.
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he can't stand that he doesn't have the words for it. for how much it hurts that chapel's hate for wolfwood was stronger than his love for razlo ever could have been. that the prodigal son always meant more to their master than his most devout.
not that he would ever let wolfwood hear if he could speak it.
razlo stills when he reaches wolfwood, presses his chest to the barrel of the gun in his own taunt.]
Shoot me, then, Punisher. [he spits the title like venom. just another aspect in which the eye and chapel both considered wolfwood somehow superior to razlo.] You won't.
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The metal of the gun rattles against itself as he adjusts his grip, the embossed handle glinting in the low light of the room. Razlo may not have noticed it yet, but their heartspaces have long since blended together. The sound of church bells in the distance rings over them both ominously.
Is it meant to be hopeful, or akin to a funeral march?
...Razlo is right, though. He can't. Not when he doesn't know what would happen if he did, and even then...that's still Livio's face looking back at him.
For a moment, the angle of the gun falters. It falls away from Razlo's chest, away from his vitals.
Then, with the speed of a striking snake, he whips up the pistol and holds it point blank at his shoulder, and fires. He has every intent to use the space in between to get the fuck out of here.
Assuming...he can figure out where "out" is.]
no subject
maybe goading wolfwood wasn't the best idea -- even the cut of his nails still hasn't healed over, so the bulletwound will surely take a few minutes as well. but razlo is no stranger to pain. in a way, he's grateful that it lasts, even as he gives chase like a cat to a mouse.
only... he doesn't expect the place he runs into. the person now suddenly between him and his prey.
razlo never met miss melanie. not formally. he only knows her through livio, and briefly, from a distance, when chapel and wolfwood and vash were all there too. just like then, he finds himself frozen in place, capable only of staring under her own watchful gaze.
he doesn't like how often this seems to be happening now.]
no subject
Of course, he isn't expecting to run "out" of that meeting room with his feet leaving the wood floor to instead thud across sand, skidding to a stop abruptly the moment he realizes just where he's standing. They're suddenly out on the courtyard, the place...well. At least one of them grew up, anyway.
He looks back over his shoulder, breathing hard, his eyes widening a fraction when he sees Miss Melanie standing there. She hasn't said anything to either of them, but it's clear she's watching, as if they're just another pair of unruly children she's been tasked to look after. Wolfwood isn't sure he'd ever forget what it felt like, even years in the future.
It's funny. He just never thought Razlo would be capable of being tripped up by it, like he is.]
Miss Melanie.
no subject
if there's anything razlo might feel the slightest bit of guilt for, it's that. and like a child who knows they did wrong, he can't face her.
it's infuriating that wolfwood is hiding behind his mommy, also like a child. but raz still can't bring himself to cross that line. not right in front of her. he slumps, suddenly favoring the bleeding shoulder as if he truly feels the pain for the first time, and trudges back the way he came with a grumble.]
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Therefore, he should be thankful for this out that he's giving him, whether it be purposeful or not. Her being inbetween him and Razlo is saving his sorry hide, which by all accounts should be tanned at this point for what he just pulled.
So why, then, does he feel compelled to call after Razlo when he suddenly turns tail and walks away? He genuinely can't say. Maybe there's some sense of guilt spurning him on, like he deserves to have the shit beaten out of him, but can't actually say as much.]
Where do you think you're goin'?
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from the other end of the courtyard, he whirls back around to holler right back.]
Why don't ya come back over 'n find out?!
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[Do you want him to FINISH IT, Wolfwood?? Do you want to die-]
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[because you TOLD HIM TO --]
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Just piss off or c'mere so I can put ya outta my misery! I'm sick'a lookin' at yer sorry ass!
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[Wolfwood. Wolfwood You Need To Stop-?
The two of them are positioned in some kind of goofy standoff with their former caretaker ostensibly between them, albeit not directly. She's standing somewhat off to the side overlooking the courtyard, looking on at the two as if they're just children arguing loudly in her peripheral.
No, it's when she speaks that Wolfwood suddenly stops, his head snapping up like he'd been shot.]
Boys! Play nice, now.
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razlo's reaction is opposite to wolfwood's, hanging his head low and slinking backward like a dog with its tail tucked.
nicholas doesn't get the satisfaction of a response. like hell raz wants to admit that he's right.]
cw: allusion to child abuse
It's like there are walls closing in on him. And while the visage of Hopeland doesn't change, there are other aspects of his memories beginning to bleed through. The sound of children playing and laughing in the courtyard melts into screaming and crying, desperate pleas for the pain to stop. And it isn't multiple voices, but just one.
Wolfwood closes his eyes tightly, bringing his hands up to grip the sides of his head for a moment. His ears ring, hearing it, remembering it, but after a moment to ground himself, he manages to somehow recenter back into where they were before. Only now, Hopeland is tainted. The sand occasionally gives way around them to tiled flooring cracked and brittle, the windows on the buildings occasionally solid walls of glass with examination rooms behind them.]
Fuck. God...god damn it...
cw: child abuse/experimentation cont, also casual toxic masculinity
razlo brought him here. razlo can handle even more pain than livio, but livio fights him back down at the same time he fights his own genes tearing themselves apart. he's strong, too, and he'll prove it. he can do it without razlo. }}
he gasps, back in his present body once more, wild eyes snapping back to wolfwood. he feels linoleum under his feet, sees stainless steel walls and bright led lamps through glass windows. it isn't often that razlo has ever felt helpless, but in this, he relates to wolfwood. and he hates it. his breaths are ragged as he staggers closer once more.]
Yer still -- worked up about it? Yer Eye of fuckin' Michael! Don't be a pussy!
[is he talking to wolfwood, or himself? hm.]
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Regardless, he hisses a breath through gritted teeth, eyes snapping up to glare at Razlo over the rim of his shades.]
So what if I am? I'm not like you.
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but despite the anger, the desire to rip wolfwood's face off, he doesn't attack him again. not right now.]
Damn right yer not. Yer a useless fuckin' traitor. Waste of serum 'n oxygen both. [buddy you don't even use one of those...]
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The accusations wash over him, and they're ones he doesn't internalize nor deny. They're just facts. He is a traitor. Razlo has every right to hate him, and not understand why- after all of this time- Chapel has chosen to focus everything on Wolfwood when he has disciples that are so much more deserving. So much more loyal.
He takes a few slow, ragged breaths. He can still hear the echo of those screams between his ears.]
I don't owe the Eye anything. Nor do they deserve me.
And the same goes for you. They're lucky to have you.
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his voice is low, not timid but thinly veiling just how furious he is.]
Y'think I'm a joke? I'll rip that sharp tongue right outta your mouth.
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Is that what I fucking said?
[Wolfwood huffs, wishing he had something in his mouth to chew on. Cigarette, lollipop stick, hell even a toothpick would do.]
Am I wrong?
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What the hell else could ya mean?
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[He's not sure why he's entertaining this, especially not with how many times Razlo has tried to kill him in just the few minutes they've been talking. Genuinely though, if he were to really ask himself...
It's for Livio. It's always for Livio.]
I'm sayin' you're worth more than what the Eye or Chapel says you are. When you figure that out, you'll be a lot happier.
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