deercountry | I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

DECEMBER 2021 EVENT

Hello! We are trying a new style of event this December with archival-like entries that characters can ICly find in the Archives. This should allow characters to be able to plan against certain events that occur in-game and do research ahead of time, during the event, or after the fact.

The idea is that these prompts will provide you with all the possibilities characters could theoretically face from the prompt. We hope this leaves more open-ended opportunities for people to engage with. Anything mentioned in the excerpts could be an experience characters encounter. You can always ask for clarification on any prompt on the plotting page.

This is a way to keep all event prompts relevant since new characters would be able to "read up" on these events/excerpts by visiting the Archives or other such resources for information about past events and what they can anticipate from the setting.

We hope this new style makes sense and is fun for players to work with! They will rely on players creating more of the atmosphere than the prompts, but we think that the prompts will provide the perfect guidance as to what the atmosphere should feel like. Enjoy!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Holiday themed antler decoration.]
[Image Two: White stag with perfect, circular antlers with bits of ice attached.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Sculpture of white rabbit with neck caught in a snare. Non-graphic.]
[Image Two: Person in red cloak and wolf mask turning around.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Puppet making bloody snow angel in snow.]
[Image Two: Bloodied hands wrapped in bandages clenching.]

[NAVIGATION]

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

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

WINTER MOURNING

WHEN: Begins in December and can last until the end of Feb.
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Spoilers for various canons, survival situations, forced memory share

[A passage from Rituals of Trench: Remembering Our Pasts reads the following:]

"A long-standing tradition to celebrate Bone Season is for Deerians to collect antlers and bones salvaged from natural resources and create decorative home accents. These antler-bone decors are known formally as Winter Mournings and can be found in almost every residential home throughout Deer Country. Winter Mournings can be made to look like wreaths, candle holders, or simply an antler with a bow hung up on a wall.

Winter Mournings is seen as a way to honor one's past tribulations and how one has managed to survive and overcome hardships during their life. Winter Mournings serves as a testament to survival and a willingness to keep surviving even when things look bleak and dismal.

Creating Winter Mournings is considered a blessing to the Pthumerians Dorothea, Remina, and Argonaut. You will know if the blessing was accepted once your Winter Mourning begins to glow like the moon. Touch your Winter Mourning and you will be pulled back in time to a memory of a specific time when you or someone else had to survive something physically or mentally challenging. For some, it is merely a memory that cannot hurt, but for others, you may want to proceed with caution as it has been known to pull people physically back to times of war.

One cannot choose which memory they wind up in if it is their own, a friend's, or a complete stranger's. Winter Mournings was designed to create a sense of union and empathy among residents and is meant to open your mind and heart to those who have suffered around you. It is time you explore your past, or someone else's past, with an open mind and see how the other side has lived through hard times. These memories are known to be from adolescence, adulthood, or sometimes even futures that have not yet happened or timelines you have never known. After all, Remina sees all past and all history. That means they see all of your past and history too.

No memory lasts forever though. Once the memory has been concluded, you shall be brought back to the present by the Winter Mourning Stag: a great white beast with a circle of frozen antlers. It will come to you when the time is ready, and you will return to the present like waking from a dazzling dream.

Experiencing Winter Mournings can stabilize one's mood and provide restful sleep after, even if the memories may be difficult to swallow. It truly is a tribute to honor past horrors and traumas. Some memories are painful to remember, but forgetting them will never do anyone any good either. So hang your Winter Mournings and remember what matters.

Survive another day. You are worth it."

FAQ

1. Winter Mournings can produce new memories every time you touch them or the same memory.

2. Characters cannot choose what the memory is.

3. Characters can arrive in each other's memories regardless of if they already know each other. Multiple people can experience the same memory.

4. You can either experience the memory as a memory you can't touch or experience - or you can physically be in the memory and have to survive the situation as well. If you die in memory, your body will die wherever you had been touching the Winter Mourning.

5. Palebloods are capable of altering memories or how they or others experience memories.

6. Characters can be pulled into memories at random - as long as one of the characters in the memory share is touching a Winter Mourning at first.

RUN, RABBIT, RUN

WHEN: Month of December
WHERE: Everywhere/the woods
CONTENT WARNINGS: Themes of hunting, ghosts, curses, attempts at animal violence, hunting people based on blood types.

[An excerpt from Legends of Trench: Curses and Causations reads the following:]

"One of the most notorious legends of Trench is without a doubt the tale of The Huntress and the Hare. Most Trenchies have been told this tale since they were children, but for those unfamiliar, settle in.

This story begins with a mischievous god and an ambitious huntress. The Pthumerian Dorothea loved to play tricks on hunters trying to survive the Bone Season, setting animals free from traps and remaking the traps to catch the hunters instead. One day, a darkblood Huntress was fed up with Dorothea preventing her from catching food for her family and decided to settle the score. The Huntress began to hunt for Dorothea specifically, but it is no small feat hunting the god of trickery and survival.

The Huntress started to rely on her darkblood powers to alter reality to make the perfect traps. Innocuous trees turned into glue traps that anyone would stick to until they were freed by a darkblood or death took their pain from them. Walking through bushes would snag legs and necks, effectively trapping whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to wander for food. Magical snares and beartraps lock around victims with unrelenting force, leaving people and animals to try for help until they cry no more. While this took many innocent lives in the woods, animals, and people alike, it never seemed to work on Dorothea.

Dorothea continued to outwit the Huntress until she eventually drove the Huntress insane. The Huntress died without ever catching Dorothea, but they say her vengeful spirit awakens in winter and begins to set her traps yet again. The Huntress sends her traps and her dead animals after vilebloods and warmbloods to spite Dorothea and hope to maybe catch the god's attention. But Dorothea is no passive god. Dorothea spurs vilebloods and warmbloods to defend themselves against darkbloods and coldbloods.

Infamously, this has created enormous tension between the blood types during December some years, and it is said that the blood lust has caused the types to begin hunting one another regardless of old friendships and alliances. Beware the Huntress's curse. Some believe darkbloods and coldbloods can still hear her haunting commands and cries from the Trenchwood.

They say there is no ease for the tension between the bloodtypes until December has passed, but some believe palebloods may provide relief if they are willing."

FAQ

1. Characters will increasingly feel the urge to actively hunt one another using traps/etc.

2. The Huntress's curse includes undead animals/beasts chasing after warmbloods and vilebloods and magical traps. Players can invent unique traps for their characters.

3. There will be an innate urge to chase/hide from one another.

4. The curse can be broken by paleblood intervention, character death, or a gradual wearing off by the end of the month.

LOCKJOINT

WHEN: All of Bone Season
WHERE: On Sleeper bodies
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild body horror, blood magic curses, physical curses, cures through blood ministration/blood letting, possible skin removal, injuries, possible death via starvation/exposure.

[An passage from The Sleeper Condition; Chapter 13: Bodily Aches and More. Found exclusively at the Lumenarium:]

"Generally speaking, Sleeper blood allows Sleepers to navigate this world without the fear of illness and disease. However, no organic body is perfect, and Sleeper blood has its own set of ailments to fret over. Blood Ministers have studied the phenomena of Lockjoint for years now and believe that it is linked to the crystalization found in Sleeper death, though the exact connection remains unknown.

Lockjoint tends to begin and last throughout Bone Season. Some Sleepers may never experience it, but for many, it becomes a reoccurring issue to dread each season. This condition forces blood magic to gather at the joints and effectively lock up. Sleepers find it difficult to move their bodies at the bends, fingers, knees, shoulders, etc without some form of discomfort. Minimal lockjoint can be painful and annoyance, but critical lockjoint can be fatal.

The most severe cases of lockjoint documented have shown Sleepers to have crystalization form over their joints, rendering parts of their bodies completely immobile. Some Sleepers have been found dead in this condition, all their joints crystallized, and it is believed most died from natural causes thereafter.

One can determine they are experiencing lockjoint when the coloration around the joints begins to darken in color, typically looking like a bruise. Calcification may occur rapidly the more magic a Sleeper uses or the more they expose themselves to outside elements. It is imperative that Sleepers remain properly clothed during Bone Season, even if they are coldbloods, and to invest in enchanted clothes that can lock in heat.

A known cure for lockjoint is the art of bloodletting. Puncturing the joints with small incisions seems to allow a release of the built-up magic and can provide immediate relief to the Sleeper. Catching lockjoint early is imperative. Alternative methods are soaking in hot springs and salted water.

Those who are in a more severe state will have to carefully have the crystals removed. This will likely remove the skin as well. Local anesthesia is highly recommended for the procedure. This process is known to leave scarring. The crystals can be saved and used as bloodstones from whoever they were harvested from. If you find a Sleeper dead from lockjoint, make sure to harvest the crystals as they are incredibly valuable.

This curse is believed to stem from Sleeper blood magic congealing within the body in contrast with the atmospheric magic of Bone Season. There is no known prevention for lockjoint. Lockjoint can impact all Sleepers regardless of bloodtype or the material their bodies are made from."

FAQ

1. This impacts characters regardless of blood type or their body - meaning it can impact characters with metal/plastic/plant/wood/etc bodies.

2. Players can choose how rapid or severe this gets and how quickly they can be healed.

CODING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd be able to use my AT Field.

[Oh look, it's normal Kaworu, he has his feet on the piano (crass), leaning back and watching the scene.]

But it is SEELE tech created for the purpose of confining a creature such as myself. I don't know what failsafes they've put on it to prevent tampering.

[ Flynn, already halfway across the room, halts at those last words, looking over his shoulder at the current Kaworu. ]

What did they mean? About... you being replaceable? Is it hurting you?

[ That last part is addressed to them both. He isn't even sure if the younger Kaworu can hear him but Flynn can't simply leave that there, not when he's vibrating with anger at those callous words lobbied to someone who couldn't even defend himself. Who mocked the idea of dying, and then seemed to have been presented with it. ]

Not really. It's more of an annoyance. Though getting impaled does hurt.

[He rubs at his chest, a little unconsciously, remembering the sudden impact of the false-spear into his chest.

Then he gives a little shrug.]

It means that the Dummy System they've been working on is operational. If need be, they can replace a pilot with a program that uses my personal data. Or even transfer my soul into another vessel if need be.

[ Flynn's brows draw even further together until his face is a picture of proper, real anger. He doesn't know the base meaning of many of those words, but they paint a picture in broad strokes that he does not like the shape of.

And he can't pull the spear out because it might... do something. Flynn remembers the failsafes on Heracles. He can't just rush in when it might do more harm than good, no matter how much it pricks at him. Frustrating, but he relents, crossing his arms instead, frozen between the two Kaworus. ]

Meaning that you, as you are... there, would not be needed. This is a memory, correct?

Yes. This happened a few months before I was finally transferred to NERV. Though, I don't think they were able to move my soul to a new vessel. Otherwise, I would not be here. But my personal data remains in their hands.

[He watches Flynn, watching the contorted expression, like he's trying to understand why Flynn is so angry at this memory, this thing that he cannot change.]

[ Flynn turns, finally, with a harsh sound. ]

There must be some way to get that thing out of your chest. This is awful! No person is replaceable.

Hah.

[It starts out as a comment. An aside, but then suddenly, he can’t stop laughing at this statement that is just so… absurd to him.]

I am not a person to them. I am a tool to end and nothing more.

[ The laughter is sudden and alarming, and Flynn's face shutters a bit because it isn't... really a happy sound, to his ears. It's the laughter of Alexei on top of Zaude, aimed at the absurdity and scale of his own failures.

He steps closer to the Kaworu he knows. ]

They may think you are a tool. They are wrong.

How do you know. How can you tell what a person was made for? Or what they can be?

[There's bitterness in his voice but... an almost childlike curiosity. As if he really wants to believe that Flynn could look at him and see something that he can't. Some other purpose.]

[ Flynn's face softens ever-so-slightly, though it's still lined with anger on Kaworu's behalf. No wonder he was so taken with the story of Estellise. ]

My friend Yuri believes—and I agree with him—that people are... simply people. That they are not made for anything, and that it is their choices who define what they are and who they can be. Many people, especially those with a great deal of power, do not agree. They believe that they alone are made for greatness, and that those they consider beneath them are tools to be used for their own gain. This is wrong. Everyone is a person, no matter what. You are a person despite what they tell you. You can be what you choose, and you should be given the chance to choose it.

[For a second, Kaworu is still. Part of him wants to laugh at the absurd statement. Such lofty ideals, such nonsense given what he has seen. And yet part of him seizes up at the thought that this all could be true. That there's something in him, a spark, like humans have that make him unique. He pushes it down. There's little point in believing it.]

I am not. I'm a vessel. My soul isn't my own, nor is it human.

[A doctor shuffles in to the room to approach the younger version of Kaworu, who doesn't resist as the doctor injects him with something that causes him to drift to sleep, lance still piercing his chest.]

Is that what they have told you?

[ Flynn's voice is soft and sure, full of a sadness he doesn't quite know what to do with. Kaworu on the bed looks so young, so much like Estellise, a prisoner of others' expectations and the ways in which they could use her. They didn't bother to tell her that she was merely a vessel for the powers she helf, but they certainly treated her that way. ]

It's true. I carry Adam's, the father of all angels', salvaged soul within my body. That is part of the reason I am so vital to their plans.

[That Kaworu looks young but the one in front of him is barely older. Just wearier, more cynical. As what happens when you live and see truths. He brushes a hand across his chest, across where the lance is buried into his younger self's chest. What does a soul feel like? Is it warm? Should he feel something?]

But does that make you only a tool? Or is it most convenient for them if you believe that there is nothing more to you?

[ Flynn doesn't know those names, really. Adam means nothing to him except as a name, but he won't relent on his, and there is a certain kind of determination on his face, in his voice. ]

If you're vital to a plan, that is all the more reason to... tell you precisely what they think you need to believe. It does not mean that it is true.

It is true. I can feel it. My nature isn't human and there's no other way I could have been birthed like this, into this form.

[He shoves his hands into his pockets. As if to present like he doesn't care Or maybe it's a coping mechanism.]

They didn't have good intentions but they didn't lie about my creation.

[ A carefully-careless sort of look, or at least, that's why Yuri seems to do it. Flynn shifts away from the bed and the boy on it, toward the one he can speak to. His footsteps are oddly soft in the silent room. ]

Those without human nature still bear souls. The Entelexia, at home, were called monsters by those who did not understand, but that didn't make them soulless.

What do you think it means to have a soul?

[It's curious, but not innocently so. He's clearly prodding for something that he wants to hear. Or some kind of answer.]

Honestly? I'm not sure. Those sorts of theological questions were better left to those who studied that sort of thing at home, or, that was what I believed for a long time. My purpose was not to identify or judge who had a soul and what would happen to them, but to free people from a life they had no choice but to live.

However, after... everything that has happened, I must believe that to have a soul means something like having a choice. If you have a soul, you are afforded free will. If you have a soul and live in a just world, you are able to act upon that free will to make choices for yourself.

...You're right. I do have free will. Though I didn't realize it until the very end. Still, it remains that my soul isn't actually mine and therefore can be used in ways that normal souls can't. It always had its own purpose.

What do you believe a soul is, in that case? Is it what makes you who you are, or is it a piece of you?

A soul is the spark of life. Without a soul, there's no life. It's what creates AT Fields and allows humans to exist separately from each other. What else it means, I don't think anyone knows.

[A pause.]

I think soul both shapes and is shaped by the life it creates.

It must, I agree. A soul may start as an unvarnished and unfinished piece, but I can only assume that by the time it leaves the body it has chosen to inhabit, it has been changed by that body. Perhaps your soul is not yours, but your body is now, isn't it?

This body was created for me. And so, sometimes it doesn't feel like it's meant to exist. I feel solid and yet made of nothing but light at the same time.

Does everyone feel that way?

...no, I don't believe so, but I can speak only for myself. I don't feel that way. I feel... very mortal, I think. Particularly in this place. Trench. Do you mean to say that you feel that way physically?

[ That would explain his odd lack of concern about his younger self, about that lance and the awful injury it seems to imply. ]

Edited 2022-01-24 02:47 (UTC)

Yes. I... am mortal but also not. Human, and not. Humans like to place things in categories, in genuses and species, but I don't fit into any.

[His disappointment is palpable at first and then he straightens a bit.]

I've never told anyone that before.

[The disappointment on his face is palpable

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)