deercountry | Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom

Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom

OCTOBER 2021 EVENT

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Band playing on moving float with people in masks walking behind.]
[Image Two: Woman in gas mask and elaborate ballgown.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Man looking away while creepy corpse-like woman puts hand on window.]
[Image Two: Two contorted girls crawling across floor with blood flowing out.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Headless horseman with jack-o-lantern rearing on horse.]
[Image Two: Annabelle doll rocking on its own in chair.]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE

WHEN: During the daytime every day of October
WHERE: Throughout the streets of Cellar Door and Willful Machine.
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

The Black Parade has begun in Trench. You will begin to see residents painting skulls and monsters onto their faces, even the ones who abide by practical lifestyles. By the first week of October, you won't see a single resident of Trench without facepaint or a mask of some kind obscuring their face.

"It's for the Black Parade," they say, "It's to keep us safe. You should start painting your face too. You should disguise yourself so they can't find you."

Who, you might ask? Anyone dangerous. It's vague and unsettling, but you think maybe they are onto something. Call it intuition or basic common sense. Stalls pop up all around Trench selling cheap masks and costumes. They aren't exactly Halloween costumes. There's less of a focus on becoming something and more of a focus on looking different than you currently do.

Then the Black Parade really takes off. Black and white confetti seem to fall from the sky and you can hear the distant sound of trumpets and drums. You can feel the earth give small tremors and Trenchies begin to flock to Cellar Door and the Willful Machine. They line the streets and you can see why: a literal parade is coming through. Stages are set with talented musicians rocking out, singing into wireless, floating moonlit mics. Incredible, giant puppets walk through the streets guided by a dozen talented Architects. Other people move about in stilted costumes, elaborate gowns. Some performers set up small, stationary areas to perform for smaller crowds. The sky is filled with massive and unusual kites. Find one among the many stalls or make your own!

Stalls hand out candied applies, foil-wrapped candies, and roasted pumpkin seeds by the bundles. Hot ciders are kept in barrels ready to be served up in tin mugs, with or without alcohol. It's a festive atmosphere that seems to go nonstop 24/7 throughout October but exclusively in these areas. It's a good place to go to avoid some of the haunts of October and to have a good time. Why not get involved? Make your own puppet, float, or costumes, and join in the fun. Chunks of the road are reserved for parades, but others have been sectioned off for people to dance and mingle about. You quickly learn that face-paint and masked/concealed faces seem to be a good way of avoiding the attention of beasts, angry Pthumerians, and other unusual creatures in Trench.

It's not a foolproof method, but October largely celebrates the safety of ambiguity and is one of the few times the practical and pleasure factions get along. Get your face painted up or pick out a costume - it's both aesthetic and life-saving! The Black Parade is held annually every October all October long and is considered a significant Trench holiday. Many people refer to the costumes specifically as "Black Parade" costumes and sentiments commonly exchanged at this time include: Have a blessed and safe Blood Moon; May your Seasons pass unseen; Bless the many faces of cleverness; May you go unseen by the blood; Blessed Black Parade.

QUICK FACTS

1. Halloween costumes you can buy at the store won't be available unless a character intentionally makes one. Most of the costumes in Trench are more or less eccentric make-up looks and unusual masks. They look a lot more like Cirque du Soleil costumes than Halloween costumes.

2. Characters can have multiple costume/face-paint/mask changes throughout the month. No one will be forced into these - but it is strongly, culturally encouraged for everyone's safety to dress up!

LONELINESS KILLS: THE CURSE OF CLOVERFIELD

WHEN: October
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Psychological-based curse, feelings of intense loneliness, mental health.

It is said that the Blood Moon reminds Cloverfield of those he has lost over the decades. They say that the howling wind is actually the sound of Cloverfield's cries and there seems to be some truth to that. He can be seen wandering the Farther Shores and watching the moon. If you seek out Cloverfield and offer him comfort and companionship, he will bless you with a worn picture of a loved one or someone you miss desperately or even just a place you miss...Even if it's impossible for such a picture to exist.

Of course, not everyone will visit Cloverfield. Cloverfield's loneliness begins to curse the city of Trench. Sleepers will be impacted the most heavily as their blood will directly react to this curse. Sleepers who have a good sense of relationship may be able to avoid the curse, but those who often feel lonely or homesick will start to feel worse and worse as the days go by.

Eventually, their loneliness begins to manifest as a corpse-like version of themselves or the person they care about most. This corpse follows them around everywhere like a shadow. You won't notice your own Loneliness, but other people might, especially palebloods, Night Walkers, and Disciples. These corpses don't seem to care about anything or anyone and at first don't seem violent...But eventually, this Loneliness becomes consuming.

Once it does, you too will contort, and you and your Loneliness will soon be crawling about on all fours, blood floating out of you in thin streams. You'll be lost to your feelings of loneliness, stalking the streets with your Loneliness, looking for companionship. Of course, you're completely corrupt at this point, so your version of finding companionship most likely involves accidentally suffocating someone or other violent actions. Some people may never become violent once they are in the Final Stage, but the blood constantly flowing from them will create heavy blood pollution and may draw in far more dangerous creatures. You really don't want Lonely People walking around!

Better start some conversations - even if these Lonely People are creepy as hell. But, then again, they are just lonely. Hopefully, you will find peace of mind and find your people. Hopefully, you will banish loneliness...For the time being.

QUICK FACTS

1. This curse will impact people who are more isolated than others. Interaction with other people or animals will alleviate the curse and may completely stop it for some.

2. You can stop the curse at the corpse stage by confronting a Sleeper and opening up an emotional conversation about their loneliness. This may not always work, but the more the conversation works for the Sleeper, the more effective. The corpse will fleck away once the curse has been reversed.

3. Curses can continue to come back throughout October, but once you've experienced it once, it's less likely to occur again.

4. The Final Stage of the curse is the hardest to stop and most of the time, it's easiest to just kill the Cursed. It's easier to kill them than talk them out of their loneliness, but it is not impossible to talk them out of it. It requires dedication, patience, and some serious cleverness on how to survive a monster trying to kill you at the same time.

5. Loneliness can be widely interpreted once in the Final Stage. People should generally still look like themselves. How people act in this stage can vary from character to character and should be centric to how characters deal with their loneliness in general. If they're prone to shutting people out, then maybe their Loneliness is aloof and distant. If they're prone to clinging to toxic people, then maybe their Loneliness is accidentally violent. It's open to interpretation.

LEGENDS OF TRENCH

WHEN: All October
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Ghosts, Themes of death.

Unfortunately, not everyone can gain control of their loneliness. As blood is spilled throughout Trench over loneliness, this blood pollution festers and begins to claim poor souls. Corruption leads way to beasthood and people lost to this find themselves transforming into familiar, legendary ghost stories of old-world lore. These Legendary Ghosts come out primarily at night. As the Black Parade established, anyone who keeps their faces disguised with make-up or masks will be completely safe from the Legendary Ghosts. Though if you go after a Legendary Ghost in a costume, you'll only be safe until you attack them. It's not a bad move for a sneak attack though!

...But those who forgot to dress up or felt like such superstitions wouldn't work...

Congratulations, you might come across the path of a Dullahan: a headless horseman carrying a whip made from a spinal cord, ready to throw basins of blood on you and draw in other beasts. Or maybe you encounter a far more subtle Legendary Ghost. Maybe you see a hitchhiker on the side of the road and decide to give them a ride, but when you look in your rearview mirror, they are no longer in your backseat. While most of these Legendary Ghosts are intending to harm you and spread more blood pollution, some just seem to be genuinely lost souls, lost to corruption, lost to their own failures and loneliness. In some cases, freeing them is protecting yourself and others, but in other cases, freeing them is just simple kindness.

You may meet a ghost bride who is waiting eternally for her wedding by one of the shrines in Cassandra. Maybe you meet a ghostly scholar at the Archives in Gaze. The spirits range widely and seem to haunt every corner of Trench - including your own homes. The only real way to deter a Legendary Ghost from your home is by heavily decorating your home with things like jack-o-lanterns, fake blood splatters, fake gravestones, and various other death-centric decor. This seems to repel Legendary Ghosts as they see it as a reminder of their own fate. Some are angered by the decorations while others are terrified by them and seem incapable of telling the difference between real blood and fake blood.

QUICK FACTS

1. These corrupt souls can be saved through blood rituals/magic/ghost banishings relying on blood artifacts. This will usually put the soul to rest - it will not bring people "back to life."

2. While it is mostly Trenchies turning into these beings, Sleepers can also be transformed into Legendary Ghosts. We provide a general outline, but the idea is that people are turning into legendary ghost stories so you can play with your own ideas/canons.

While Trenchies cannot be saved, we leave it up to you if a Sleeper could be brought back to themselves or if they will have to "die" to be cured of their Legendary Ghost status.

3. You can use famous Legendary Ghosts from around the world. We gave a few examples, but have fun with this! The Legendary Ghost-like creature you go with should generally be "ghost-like" / have to do with death specifically. They do not need to be exclusively evil/violent spirits, but many are.

CODING

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[Loneliness Kills] Later October

(I) - If anyone denies their need for companionship, Wesker fits that arrogant profile. He keeps himself to himself, as the saying goes, observing people, Sleepers and locals alike, as he'd long ago embraced the role of the Lone Genius. But for all his powers of observation, he's failed to observe something now dogging his footsteps as he makes his way through the streets of Trench.

A figure lopes behind him, dogging his footsteps from a distance, also keeping itself to itself: sometimes it appears as a tall blonde woman in white, who seems to watch him with a detached interest. Other times it manifests as a shorter blond man in a lab coat, his shadow taking on progressively more terrible shapes, and once in a great while, a red-haired woman who watches him with gentle intent. However, any time he catches something out of the corner of his eye or around the frames of his glasses, the figure ducks out of sight.

"Whoever or whatever is back there, you can come out and show yourself," he says, patiently. "If this is an October trick, the novelty has long since worn off the treat."

(II) - The Loneliness sets in harder than he expected. He thought himself immune to it, given his solitary nature and the emotional detachment instilled in him from an early age. But as his shadow companion starts to twist and contort, he feels the weight pressing on his mind and soul, if he can still claim one. A dampness starts at the corners of his eyes, and when he blots at them with a pocket handkerchief, it comes away blotched with reddish-tinged green.

He glances back to the twisted figure loping behind him, its limbs twisted like a spider's. "Are you trying to feed off me? I haven't much that I choose to share," he retorts, exhausted, fighting the pull to succumb to the madness

Amid the throng of people, Todoroki can see the ghostly figures hovering near certain people. Being a hero-in-training, he can't simply walk away from what his eyes reveal. He's already approached a few people about the issue and each time, it's a different but familiar story. Some don't talk much, others can't stop talking. In the end, he lets them know they're not alone.

When he spots a ghostly figure striding alongside someone he's spoken to before, Todoroki changes course immediately. He loses sight of him in the crowd and takes considerable effort on his part to find him again but when he does, there's a different figure lurking around him. That's different, he think as he approaches.

"It's not a trick," he says appearing from the direction of the shadows. "They're real. I can see them."

He's wearing a black mask that covers half his face with a dark theme. It's obsidian sharp with visible teeth near the mouth. It's not small either, rising up beyond red strands and down the length of his shoulder covering up the scar on his face.

"At least I'm not the only one seeing them. Hallucinations... there's one form of madness I'm immune to," the man in black murmurs. His own mask, a black leather tentacled affair is tucked inside the breast of his leather duster. "However... I take it I'm not immune to whatever causes these entities to be drawn to us." He looks up at Todoroki's mask, giving it a smirk of approval. "Is that why we're asked by the locals to mask up? The better to shield us from whatever may dog our heels?"

"Doctor," a voice said from nearby, emerging down the path. One hand rested lightly on the hilt of her rapier, though she didn't draw it. She began to approach, levelling her gaze at the strange apparition that was scuttling, tailing him. Her lips thinned, having seen one or two of these this month already. They were getting pervasive.

"It's Winters now, isn't it? Are you alright? Do you need any help?"

"Winters to those I've not met before. Wesker to those I have. And also to that which dogs my heels, since it chose to wear the face of an old friend," he says, a rasp of pain and annoyance in his voice. The think had the audacity to take on the face of William.

"Mmm, I've noticed that this has been something of a persistent issue, the figures of our past, following, haunting us. Honestly, wasn't that usually more of a spring thing than fall?" She snorted and shook her head, laughing once. "Are you alright, Albert? I can't imagine an old friend following you would be enough to fel you, not after having seen such false visions before."

He might look at her over his frames, puzzled before the memory returns. "The Wastes... when they were unmasked. There was one who had dogged my heels through the late winter. She fell ill along with the rest of them, and I freed her of that mask.

He pauses. "She was my sister Alex, albeit in a different and younger host body which she shared with its original occupant. I found the one I had been seeking, but not for long. She passed in my arms. I took her remains back to the house I'd dwelled in and buried them in the cellar.

"At least... these visions haven't used her face. Though they've used others." He shakes his head, tensing, fighting the unwelcome torsion still threatening to contort his frame. "One would think I would be immune to such visions, but it would seem part of me is still easily infected by this frailty."

"You've begun to develop a certain... fondness, I've noticed. I don't personally think it's a vulnerability. Your habit of dealing with these things in solitary has always come with risks." She stepped in closer, her whole body relaxing a bit more. The fact that she was in the presence of a vileblood removed a little pressure between her eyebrows from the headaches Palebloods were plagued with this month, though she spent enough time with others that it wasn't too bad.

"You're not a very sentimental man, so the times when it finds a way to worm in, it's that much more difficult to address is it not?" A sigh and a smile. "And family is always one of the most profound things to affect us. I'm glad that these visions aren't using that face yet."

He may lean in toward her, softly, even slightly, but for him, it is the bridging of a gap. His frame may relax, though only so much. "You have that right. I never had much room for sentimentality, not for as long as I can recall," he says. "When it does manifest itself, it feels like an infection, at least till I've identified it.

"If these visions should steal her face - either one of them, I might add - I would find that untenable. Pray that it doesn't, but I wouldn't write off the possibility. We both know the kind of tricks these manifestations can and will play.

Drily, he adds, "There's the temptation to lean into this feeling, however, I doubt I have the code written into me for it. Whatever I had was written out a long time ago. I doubt that could be overwritten, whatever new leaves I may have turned over."

"It's important to know your vulnerabilities. To know your weakness, it is to prepare for the possibility it might be exploited. To take a human myth of this world's precursor? Had Achilles properly known his weakness, perhaps he would have considered a steel shot boot?" It wouldn't have saved him. That wasn't how fate worked in Grecian myth. It was better to lean in than to avoid things. Made it end cleaner. But the allusion still worked in her mind.

"I think perhaps part of the problem with these aggressive approaches from the world is that, while they can solicit a response, they're not likely to change anything in you. As you said, you've been rewritten. They need something new, not the past, do they not?" Really, being critical of the approaches to their curses was something she only ever did with he and Reaper. It felt good to just sit back and mock the world for not being good enough at getting under their skin, at least until it finally did.

"I know my vulnerabilities well, perhaps too well, to the point that I've likely missed some. Or that I've obsessed over covering those that I've overlooked some," he says, a rasp of exhaustion in his voice. "One can cover a multitude of weaknesses and miss something, to one's downfall." The weariness suggests he's been there and seen things fall apart and had to improvise.

If allowed, he leans in closer, his head close to hers. "They need to surprise me. Horrors I can bear, after a lifetime of taking test subjects apart and studying the effects of various infectious agents, but tenderness would shock me.

"There are times... when some small part of me misses being human," he murmurs, just audible enough for her to hear. If she looks closely, around the edge of one lens, she might spot one brackish-looking tear slipping from the inner corner of one eye. Then it is gone and his usual sangfroid returns.

"Eventually if you introspect enough, you can blind yourself to certain things, yes?" she said, just as aware as he was that sometimes just being able to look inward didn't mean that you always caught all of your flaws.

She listened to him, not shying away when he leaned in, nodding and sighing sadly. "I think I can see why some of these incidents bite more. They're trying to tug at portions of your being that are faded and muted by time and deed. To remind you of the things you've lost. Not so much morality, as what people perceive as their humanity, yes?" She tapped her lips, watching him lean back again. "Do you believe you can still embrace those things, Albert?"

"Like Poe's Purloined Letter, the most discreet place to hide something is in plain sight, and what plainer sight can one's own self be?

"I have little inclination for those things. On most days. But some nights I wonder if the man in me who had those inclinations fully died in that basement lab space. Or if he haunts me like the ghost I became," he murmurs. The past two years in his world of origin, as the BSAA's attack dog have domesticated some part of him.

Cracks have started showing in the face of the creature which has dogged his heels and it wavers on its feet.

"You make me wish to read more Earth literature. You seem to have ... impeccable taste in such things, my friend." Honestly, it was one thing she appreciated about him. There was a moment while she considered what he said afterwards, tapping her lips while the two chatted.

"To be honest, I don't think we can know the truth of it. We're not in the dream, and yet there is still a quality of this world that is never clear. It's deceptive, confused, unsure. But that's what we have each other for, yes? Perspective."

((Moved over Here))

Stiles has once again found himself out on the streets without remembering how he got here and is also likewise more than ready to pass it off as October tricks that he's heard of. And oddly, he's wearing a fox mask…

"Where the hell did this come from…?" He asks himself as he takes it off his face, and not long after he hears Wesker's voice down the road and thinks he's talking to him, "Dude, I'm just walking here. Dunno what you're doing but last I checked this was a free-ish country. Pretty sure, anyway…"

The other sounds almost as bad off as he, with what sounds like a dissociative episode,. He might take that over...whatever hallucination or vision dogs his heels.

"A country where spirits are free dog the heels of the unsuspecting, wearing the faces of those most valued to the beholder?" Wesker muses, glancing in Stiles's general direction, as he looks back to keep an eye on the figure now lurking in the shadows of a doorway.

"What, are you writing a novel or something?"

Stiles isn't in the mood for recited purple prose even on a good day, much less after returning to awareness after a blackout. Normally, he's rather perceptive and would have clocked Wesker's eyes moving to the figure in the doorway, but he's still a bit disoriented.

"Are you mocking my style of speech?" the other asks, a hint of an annoyed rumble in his voice, darting another look over his shoulder. "Must I use words of one sound for you?", literally doing just that.

"More like I'm really not in the mood for your style of speech," He says testily, bringing a hand up to rughly run it through his hair, and it's at that moment that he notices Wesker's eyes flickering behind him, and he turns. And he yells and scrambles backwards closer to the man.

"What the hell?!"

Wesker keeps one eye on either interloper as best he can, a dull reddish glow starting to flare behind them. "And with this... spectral prowler haunting my footsteps, I'm not in the mood for word games." The temptation to rush Stiles and throttle him has risen, but keeping an eye on the specter is a far more urgent matter.

The thing has taken the form of a blond man in a lab coat, albeit one who's become double-jointed, his shadow a hulking shapeless form sliding up the wall.

"Whatever you are, was it necessary to take William's face for your mask?" Wesker rasps, leaning against a lamppost tiredly.

The desire to throttle Stiles is pretty normal and he wouldn't blame Wesker, he knows he has that effect on people. For now, though, all his agitated snark is put on the backburner as they face down the 'spectral prowler'… though he can't help but mutter to himself: "Dude, just call it a stalker…"

He backs up to where Wesker is, pulling his metal bat from its holster on his back with his newfound telekinetic powers. That's really the best he can do with them at this point. Then he looks over to Wesker where he leans against that post, wondering all of a sudden if he's injured.

"Now is the literal worst time to keel over, man. And who's William?"

((Moved here on ye Overflow post.))

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Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom

Albert Wesker / Resident Evil (Deerington CRAU) / Vileblood

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(This has been an up and down month...)

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