reddosmod: (Default)
Deer Country Mod ([personal profile] reddosmod) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2021-10-08 06:14 pm

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.]

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
swornto: (pic#15134523)

[personal profile] swornto 2021-10-29 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
[She's read him like a book, and it's a sad story. A frustrating story. Oz barely even noticed himself treading that old path until he's reminded of the habit. He tries to get up and meet her, he really does, but he's so stunned and at a loss for words that his body won't move very quickly.

Oz doesn't even notice his old mask creep back into place.]




You too, huh..? I- We don't need to miss him, though. Gil is probably living his own life now. Leo and Ada will look after him...

[*Vincent, you can barely talk care of yourself so Oz isn't counting on you atm.]
velvet_teen: (NOPE NOPE NOPE)

[personal profile] velvet_teen 2021-10-30 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
Huh? That's stupid, I'll miss who I want to miss! I want to eat his cooking and I want him to pat my head and I want him to call me a stupid rabbit!

[ There are big shiny tears gathering in the corners of her eyes as she rants on. ]

[ Leo and Ada aren't Alice and Oz, either but she's focusing on one thing here - well, multiple things here, all of those things being things that Gil could be doing if he was here but he is not and she's unhappy about it! ]
swornto: (09)

[personal profile] swornto 2021-10-30 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
Alice...

["I'll miss who I want to miss."

Alice so easily says the words that Oz has been denying. He's hid them under layers of excuses, telling himself that he isn't allowed to think or feel those things. But when Alice says it, it doesn't sound wrong. She reminds him of how foolish and weak he is. And how wrong he is to deny his own feelings.

Gil would be so worried if he saw the state Oz was in.]


I know. But... We promised, right? We'll see him again in another hundred years.

[And Oz hates it. It's beginning to dawn on him that one hundred years is a horribly long time. How can he wait that long? How can Gil wait that long?]
velvet_teen: (I can't bite it so its not important)

[personal profile] velvet_teen 2021-11-01 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
[ Coming into existence as one of a matched set might mean that you grow up with something missing, Alice suspects, from experience. Oz used to be two rabbits, maybe the other one had most of the honesty in it and this is why he's like a big flaky croissant with all the layers of things he talks about instead of all the things he should be saying. ]

I made fun of him for crying about it, but I never promised I wouldn't cry, and neither did you! I don't want to wait that long, just because I have to do it doesn't mean I like it!

[ This is something that's occurring to her as she's saying it, because she is now thinking about it and also about Gil rather than simply barging through life as is her custom. ]
swornto: (36)

[personal profile] swornto 2021-11-01 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
[Every time she gets upset, Oz feels the lid on his feelings begin to slide away. His response of a chuckle is beginning to sound more side. He did not promise that he would not cry, it's true. Why is he so intent on hiding these tears? It's not just for his sake, is it?]

I don't like it either. But you're here. And Alice is here. I'm happy about that, so...

[Why does he want to cry? He should be grateful!

... Oz knows the reason. He wants Gilbert to be there too. Alice is wonderful and Oz adores her immensely, but Alice and Gilbert hold pieces of Oz's heart. The trio is incomplete without him and that feels strange.]
velvet_teen: (WHY CAN'T I BITE IT)

[personal profile] velvet_teen 2021-11-03 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)
So be happy I'm here to be sad at, it's not hard, all you have to do is think about - think about-

[ Think about the horrified faces she could have gotten out of Gil over the whale thing, think about how he'd be bustling and fussing around the house, think about the meals he could be squeezing out of the mushrooms and such they scrounge up, and think about how none of that has happened. She leaps upon Oz, sending him down into the shallows again, and promptly starts wailing and sobbing into his jacket. ]
swornto: (pic#15149499)

[personal profile] swornto 2021-11-06 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[He's so shaken by her words that Oz doesn't put up any fight. Fallen in the water with Alice crying into his jacket, Oz feels the cold weight of her words before he feels the water.

Thinking about it hurts. If Gil were here, he'd be so annoying. He would be enforcing a bedtime for his younger friends, keeping an eye on Alice, scolding them both when they got too silly... It would be so much fun to go back to being annoyed by Gilbert. Oz wishes he could return the favor.

Slowly, he brings his arms around Alice. It's so hard to admit that he's sad, but it's easier when Alice is setting an example. He leans forward to hide his face in her hair. Oz even feels the weight of his tears before the cold ocean registers with him. But he does recognize that Alice is warm.]
velvet_teen: (Like knives they sliced up all my feels)

[personal profile] velvet_teen 2021-11-07 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
He'd be so good at cooking all the fish, and we'd get him a new hat if he washed up without one, and he'd lose it every time I tracked gross stuff into the house...

[ This is through a moderate amount of hiccupping and bawling. Alice has no shame in her emotions, draining stuff out is always going to be messy. ]
swornto: (04)

[personal profile] swornto 2021-11-09 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
[He's hugging her the entire time, knowing very well that Alice has no limit on her emotions. Oz would feel bad if he limited his attempts to comfort her. It isn't like he hasn't started crying either. Though his tears come less freely, as if he's some kid who never learned to cry at all.]

He would. He'd be so worried about us that none of us would have time to think about where we are.

[The Trench would feel more like home if Gilbert were here, for the simple reason that Gilbert is a part of what makes home for them. Saying it aloud, Oz realizes why he's felt so distant and sad since arriving.]

... He'll find a way to worry, no matter how far we are, if we don't take care of ourselves here, huh?
velvet_teen: (Like knives they sliced up all my feels)

[personal profile] velvet_teen 2021-11-12 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ Oz has a long way to go before he has mastered the weeps. On the other hand, he looks better than Alice, who has gone red in the face, and snuffly with it. ]

He'll worry no matter what... heh, what if after a hundred years we're just fine and we can make fun of him for worrying all that time?

[ Mercurial as ever, she gives a watery smile. She wants to make fun of him right now and doesn't want to waaaaait - but alas, she doesn't have a say in whether it's a hundred years later or not. ]