Lance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurestar) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2022-03-04 08:22 pm
azurestar) wrote in deercountry2022-03-04 08:22 pm
Entry tags:
- albert wesker: ref,
- alice baskerville (black): holly,
- darth maul: shade,
- diluc ragnvindr: samuel,
- jinx: maru,
- kainé: ava,
- keith: sailor g,
- lance: charley,
- luz noceda: pedro,
- mako: jordan,
- min-gi park: andi,
- ryan akagi: billie sue,
- sal fisher: nick,
- shōyō hinata: owlie,
- soldier blue: elle,
- takashi "shiro" shirogane: red,
- uchiha sasuke: simcha,
- varian: tf,
- vi: terra,
- viktor: hal,
- vira-lorr: latroma,
- yuri lowell: mads
a wounded deer leaps the highest. | march catchall (OTA)
Who: Lance (azurestar) and YOU
What: March catchall for Event, some TDM and more.
When: All of March
Where: Trench, Jungle Level, Catacombs, Farther Shores, Trenchwood etc.
Content Warnings: hallucinations, ptsd, will add more as they appear
( ooc: All prompts have multiple ways to interact with them, read carefully! Deer weeks are roughly the first 2 weeks of March. )
DEER WEEKS
[At the very start of March, as the clock struck midnight, and the Paleblood hallucinations kicked in, Lance panicked and turned into a deer to try and escape them. He had just experienced something harrowing that rocketed his corruption to rather high levels and beasthood was probably on the horizon, and instinct kicked in, the faint memory of a month when he was a Bear after his life took a sharp downturn and he needed to not be a human surfaced and he took it as a cue. It has merely stalled his corruption increase and he's still suffering some mild hallucinations, but he's mentally more deer than Lance and that is practically a vacation to him.]
i. trenchwood
[The mystical, glowing deer with three stars in its antlers wanders Trenchwood when it needs to forage at night and during the day. At night, it lights up the area it stands in, diffusing through early morning mists and breaking the dead of night darkness. With it, there walks a coyote with the glowing eyes of an omen, but it stays at a distance, keeping eyes and ears out in the perimeter for threats. There also lurks a massive white direwolf, larger than most average horses, hunting and keeping watch at a further perimeter than the coyote, but ever present.
When the deer spots someone, it stops and looks tense and unsure, stars in its antlers and around it twinkling rapidly. If you give off a non-threatening appearance and 'energy' (he's still an empath, he can tell), he'll continue to watch and engage. If you appear threatening and have a threatening energy, he will scream and take on a stance like he's about to charge. But there is also a strong chance he will bolt. Also, he is mildly hallucinating and jumpy, even if you are not threatening, he may scream.]
ii. farther shores
[It may seem like a strange place for a mystical deer (elk?) to hang out, but this deer is Lance, and he loves the ocean, it brings him comfort. And this week there are plenty of squid washing ashore, and new sleepers. Though he is a bit more deer than Lance, he still wants to be there if someone he knows shows up. He can be seen walking primly on the shores, sniffing around for any sleeper squids in need of help. The cherry blossoms of the false spring cling to his soft fur and get stuck in his antlers and somehow the three stars and the stars that twinle around him don't burn them up.
His coyote omen can be seen loping several feet nearby along the shore and the giant white direwolf is far off on the rocky areas above the sea caves looking down. Much like the last prompt, if threatened or otherwise spooked by you, he may scream and charge or bolt. But he can be coaxed to come over closer to civilization, to the boardwalk. Trenchies hold deer as sacred and he'll be given a lot of space to walk and stares and maybe you can even use him as leverage for a free pass at one of the carnival games... if you can get him to go there.]
iii. trench
[Very rarely, he'll go into the city, and usually into areas where there aren't a lot of people and at a time where there aren't a lot of people. He gets overwhelmed, you see. He can be found mostly in Cellar Door, Willful Machine and Crenshaw late at night, lurking by his, Hunk and Bolin's house, businesses/homes of his friends and Shiro's Mouse House. Again, he is tailed by his coyote omen and the giant white direwolf at a distance, and he is especially skittish here... but he seems to be looking for something. Or someone.
As time draws on, he is more and more Lance, and he is noticing that Bolin and Keith are missing and Diluc isn't at his business. He's nervous, instinct tells him something is wrong, so as the week goes on he can be found walking around town more and more. And his drive to find them allows him to walk among more crowds, where Trenchies give him awed stares and even small bows of their heads and... a bow gets tied to one of his antlers as he passes by a child on their parents' shoulders. All of this seems to have him looking increasingly overwhelmed and confused. Help?]
iv. jungle level
[Though he's still a deer on "vacation" and also searching for Keith, Bolin and Diluc, The Moss King don't care about all these extenuating circumstances. He hears the drumming and his ears perk up in interest, the excitement grows. Is that a sign of where to go to find his friends? Edelya, the wolf and his omen hear it as well and follow him more closely to find it. They locate the game on a stump and Lance noses it open. Yes, he plays the game with his omen and his hyper intelligent direwolf, somehow heavily compelled to do so despite all his current concerns.
And then there's a mystical deer, his coyote omen and giant wolf daughter in the jungle. He's the only one who inadvertently gave blood when he picked up the piece with his teeth, but they came in with him. Awesome. Love this for them. Immediately, they are set upon by a stampede and luckily, they are able to keep up with it, being four legged themselves. If you find yourself in the path of the stampede of rhinos, Lance will run out ahead and pick you up in his antlers. The stars that hang between them move out of the way to accommodate you and you're off!
Or, if you don't want to run into this mystical deer and its odd predator companions in the middle of mortal peril or some other way, feel free to spot him running through the jungle exuding panic and psychic thoughts of 'shit!' 'holy crap!' 'where's the exit??'. OR toss your own challenge at him! Open to all challenges in the event and invented ones, go wild!]
BACK IN BLACK
[It's after finally escaping the jungle and then seeing Yuri's post that leads him to Keith and the others where he and Shiro rode to the rescue, that Lance finally turns back to himself. It happens in the middle of the night on the farther shores as he stares out at the ocean. The hallucinations are less here and seeing his friends in trouble, hurt and then getting his horns stuck in a wall like that… he felt handicapped, the whole ordeal woke him up more, made him more Lance than deer. He knows he needs to change back and try to brave what comes.]
v. carnivale
[After changing back to human, he just sort of spent the night on the beach… and woke up after a shed to another blood type. He sees the shed skin nearby and notices that he's no longer hallucinating mushrooms. His corruption is still up, but it's lessened enough that all he needs to cover the worst of it is a regular sized eyepatch rather than the large one he'd switched to that covers 1/4 of his face. His skin is still off in color and flaky, and he still has fangs, but his mind is closer to normal and without the hallucinations panicking him… he lets out a breath of relief and heads to the boardwalk to check out the last couple days of the carnival.
He can be found playing the carnival games, helping late sleepers to win their prizes with his sharp-shooting skills. Or just winning whatever prizes he feels like on his own to take the edge off of suddenly being human again. Some of the creepy dolls he wins, he just makes a face at and hands to the nearest child or even you.] Uh, I think this suits you way better.
[Other than that, he can be found both during the day and at night hanging out on the carousel or ferris wheel, munching on carnival food and just chillin. He probably looks pretty out of place as a grown young man on his own, lounging obnoxiously and incorrectly on these rides, feet up on a horse head or over the side of a ferris wheel cart. Is he drunk?]
vi. welcomeback to the jungle
[He hears the drums again as a human and it's like he gets temporary amnesia about when he was brought to the jungle as a deer. He finds the game board and perhaps he finds it with you and you play it together, or he'll do it alone or with his omen again. Either way, he's back in the jungle and he's not… having a good time at all. Long story short: last time he was in a jungle setting he was tortured and killed. Upon immediate arrival, he'll start having a trauma response, breathing hard and backing up, body glowing blue-gold from his CRAU powers.] N-no, nope. Not… not this.
[Aaand, he might back right up into a trap, like quick sand or sentient vines or a giant frog. Stop him? Otherwise, later on he can be found looking around frantically and hopping from fallen branch to tree and trying to hide in the brush even when there doesn't seem to be any dangers. At least not ones you can see, pff. Even though he has survival skills, he's not immune to getting into bad situations, feel free to rescue him from a crushing massive anaconda or quicksand, any of the challenges or invented ones are welcome.
Or he can swing in and rescue you from a rushing river, a stampede or the mosquitoes, again any challenges and ideas are welcome. He may go a little overkill if it's the Trophy Hunter who is after both of you though, like… creating four small spheres of light (stars) and making them blow up (supernova) through a wide area he thinks he sees the Hunter. That's a lot of damage. He's breathing hard, eyes wild and then a bullet zips by his cheek through the fire and smoke.] AW, COME ON!
[He's glowing again, gearing up for more firepower, looking a biiit wild. But his powers are still not working correctly and he really should not… do that.]
vii. dark places of the world
[Getting sucked down and squeezed into a dark death hole is also… not his idea of a great time. Last time he was in underground tunnels was also deeply traumatic, but at least there's not corpses everywhere, that's an improvement. He'll have a similar immediate trauma response to the catacombs as he does the jungle when he first arrives, the sound of screams echoing in the distance and the smell of this place strongly brings back some flashbacks. He glows again (more muted because this place is damping all his powers), lighting up the space and starts frantically looking around and hyperventilating.] The deep place, i-it… shit. N-no. Nooonono.
[And with that, he'll crouch down and hug his head, rocking a bit. Eventually, he will pull out of it enough to start into the catacombs, finally seeing that there is a shrine here to the Moss King and it might not… be the deep place. Maybe. Shut up. He grabs a survival pack from the cubbies and heads in, only way out is forward, he can figure that much. The further in he goes, the less his powers work, he can't even seem to make a star to light the path and resorts to the flashlight in the pack. The whole journey, he is battling claustrophobia but when coming upon tight and narrow spaces that require spelunking skills to get through etc. he'll stop, tense and not happy at all.] You're kidding, right? Nah-uh, no way. That can't be the o-only way through. And do I hear nasty cave water on the other side? It'll- It'll totally mess up our skin!
viii. the incomprehensible maze
[The smells of corpses and the feeling he is not alone has Lance more and more on edge and jumpy. The sounds that are heard are sometimes heard by both of you… and sometimes only heard by him. The only signs he can make out are english and Spanish, and he tilts his head at the rest like it keeps moving around before his eyes.] The hell is that? Did that sign just give us the finger?!
[No… no, it did not. But regardless, it eventually leads you into a room with a challenge. If it's the dark water, Lance will hesitate and make a face before sighing and walking in… and boy, he sure has vertigo all of a sudden and is clinging to you. If it's the house on fire, he will immediately run in to save the "victims" and will need to be saved. If it's the room full of treasures, he'll find it easier to pass through since he doesn't yearn for treasures these days, if you're going Gollum on him he'll give you a weird look and won't get it but will exasperatedly try to physically drag you forward. In chronology of the seasons, he is not an expert in the patrons at all and will need help… please help, he's very lost and very stressed. And lastly, he'll absolutely be running for that exit and right into the mushroom pit, either grab him or tumble in with him.]
ix. dark places of the heart
[Then the corpses start to follow him and he's panicking again, grabbing onto you and asking if you see them too. He sees his mother, his sisters and brothers, his father and grandparents. And he sees Allura and Chloe and he's shaking with emotion and fear, guilt and grief. Tears manage to escape his eye (left is still covered by an eye patch due to corruption).] I'm sorry, I-
[The corpses of his loved ones each stop their pursuit when he stops and they don't attack… he doesn't know what they want, though. He's shaking like a leaf and looks over to you, not understanding. Or the corpses are your loved ones and he's giving you concerned glances and places a cautious hand on your arm, not sure what to say or do, but he'll follow your lead.
Much later, it's black hole with the warning 'hell is ahead…', and he stands in front of it beside you, breathing hard and fast and looking like he's about to have a breakdown. It's crushing him, he already has so many immense feelings of inadequacy and this hole is finding ones he barely even knew he had, it's finding every dark crevice and wound and pulling it open. He trembles and his knees feel weak, his voice lost and reduced to a small whimper in his throat. Are you suffering the same? Who will crack first and start admitting how horrible they are? If it's not you, Lance will start talking with a tight reluctance and pain, he's trying not to… doesn't want to, but he has to.]
I'm not a good enough pilot or Paladin, I failed as the second in command, I failed the team, I'm just some dumb kid from Cuba way in over his head and I'm weak, I couldn't fight off all the magic bullshit that made me h-hurt p- I'm- I deserve everything that happened to me because I wasn't enough, I-
[He takes in a sharp breath and stops. Placing his hands over his mouth, tears starting to all from his uncovered eye. Corruption is starting to build, the scar under his eyepatch widening to reveal a dark nebula under his skin. He hasn't admitted enough to fulfill the needs of this challenge, but these are things he's struggled to admit to for years.]
x. try to breathe
[From mid-March to the end of the month, in between the times he's in the jungle and catacomb levels and after, he can be found trying to just go about something resembling normal life in Trench. He'll avoid those blood blisters the moment he sees one burst on another (NPC) sleeper and has to fight off their beast form. If you'd like to team up in driving the beast outside of Trench to try and get them back to themselves… or kill it, he won't say no to a partner in hunting.
He can be found crouching by the blood hounds and talking to them like they're people who understand what he's saying.] Nice antlers, I had a pretty sweet pair of 'em a couple weeks ago.
[Other than that, he spends a lot of time down on the Farther Shores as usual, and can be spotted talking to the Ocean/Mariana once or twice, especially late in the evenings. The water lifts abnormally up like a still wave to 'interact' and a few times, Lance seems to be glowing and venting his feelings, pacing and making stars that he sends high up to blow up and make small aurora borealis and disturbing the surface of the water.
Lastly, he seems to have won some prizes in the levels… one is that shitty T-shirt that he is absolutely wearing over a long sleeve shirt while he talks to a glaceon. He seems to be sighing.] I mean, not to look a gift pokémon in the mouth or anything, but I've got a lot of animals to look after already… what do you even eat?
[The glaceon tilts her head at him and just lets out her cry in a questioning tone.]
WILDCARD
( ooc: I've given a lot of prompts, but if you still want something else or something specific, that's totally fine! either toss a prompt at me or if you want to plot, contact me at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
spypigeon or on my plotting comment. Also, in the second half of March, Lance can still turn into a deer if he gets stressed enough in the Jungle level in particular. If you'd like to interact with prompt iv later in March, feel free to wildcard that Lance got stressed as a human and turned into a deer right before your character's eyes or something. )
azurestar) and YOUWhat: March catchall for Event, some TDM and more.
When: All of March
Where: Trench, Jungle Level, Catacombs, Farther Shores, Trenchwood etc.
Content Warnings: hallucinations, ptsd, will add more as they appear
( ooc: All prompts have multiple ways to interact with them, read carefully! Deer weeks are roughly the first 2 weeks of March. )
DEER WEEKS
[At the very start of March, as the clock struck midnight, and the Paleblood hallucinations kicked in, Lance panicked and turned into a deer to try and escape them. He had just experienced something harrowing that rocketed his corruption to rather high levels and beasthood was probably on the horizon, and instinct kicked in, the faint memory of a month when he was a Bear after his life took a sharp downturn and he needed to not be a human surfaced and he took it as a cue. It has merely stalled his corruption increase and he's still suffering some mild hallucinations, but he's mentally more deer than Lance and that is practically a vacation to him.]
i. trenchwood
[The mystical, glowing deer with three stars in its antlers wanders Trenchwood when it needs to forage at night and during the day. At night, it lights up the area it stands in, diffusing through early morning mists and breaking the dead of night darkness. With it, there walks a coyote with the glowing eyes of an omen, but it stays at a distance, keeping eyes and ears out in the perimeter for threats. There also lurks a massive white direwolf, larger than most average horses, hunting and keeping watch at a further perimeter than the coyote, but ever present.
When the deer spots someone, it stops and looks tense and unsure, stars in its antlers and around it twinkling rapidly. If you give off a non-threatening appearance and 'energy' (he's still an empath, he can tell), he'll continue to watch and engage. If you appear threatening and have a threatening energy, he will scream and take on a stance like he's about to charge. But there is also a strong chance he will bolt. Also, he is mildly hallucinating and jumpy, even if you are not threatening, he may scream.]
ii. farther shores
[It may seem like a strange place for a mystical deer (elk?) to hang out, but this deer is Lance, and he loves the ocean, it brings him comfort. And this week there are plenty of squid washing ashore, and new sleepers. Though he is a bit more deer than Lance, he still wants to be there if someone he knows shows up. He can be seen walking primly on the shores, sniffing around for any sleeper squids in need of help. The cherry blossoms of the false spring cling to his soft fur and get stuck in his antlers and somehow the three stars and the stars that twinle around him don't burn them up.
His coyote omen can be seen loping several feet nearby along the shore and the giant white direwolf is far off on the rocky areas above the sea caves looking down. Much like the last prompt, if threatened or otherwise spooked by you, he may scream and charge or bolt. But he can be coaxed to come over closer to civilization, to the boardwalk. Trenchies hold deer as sacred and he'll be given a lot of space to walk and stares and maybe you can even use him as leverage for a free pass at one of the carnival games... if you can get him to go there.]
iii. trench
[Very rarely, he'll go into the city, and usually into areas where there aren't a lot of people and at a time where there aren't a lot of people. He gets overwhelmed, you see. He can be found mostly in Cellar Door, Willful Machine and Crenshaw late at night, lurking by his, Hunk and Bolin's house, businesses/homes of his friends and Shiro's Mouse House. Again, he is tailed by his coyote omen and the giant white direwolf at a distance, and he is especially skittish here... but he seems to be looking for something. Or someone.
As time draws on, he is more and more Lance, and he is noticing that Bolin and Keith are missing and Diluc isn't at his business. He's nervous, instinct tells him something is wrong, so as the week goes on he can be found walking around town more and more. And his drive to find them allows him to walk among more crowds, where Trenchies give him awed stares and even small bows of their heads and... a bow gets tied to one of his antlers as he passes by a child on their parents' shoulders. All of this seems to have him looking increasingly overwhelmed and confused. Help?]
iv. jungle level
[Though he's still a deer on "vacation" and also searching for Keith, Bolin and Diluc, The Moss King don't care about all these extenuating circumstances. He hears the drumming and his ears perk up in interest, the excitement grows. Is that a sign of where to go to find his friends? Edelya, the wolf and his omen hear it as well and follow him more closely to find it. They locate the game on a stump and Lance noses it open. Yes, he plays the game with his omen and his hyper intelligent direwolf, somehow heavily compelled to do so despite all his current concerns.
And then there's a mystical deer, his coyote omen and giant wolf daughter in the jungle. He's the only one who inadvertently gave blood when he picked up the piece with his teeth, but they came in with him. Awesome. Love this for them. Immediately, they are set upon by a stampede and luckily, they are able to keep up with it, being four legged themselves. If you find yourself in the path of the stampede of rhinos, Lance will run out ahead and pick you up in his antlers. The stars that hang between them move out of the way to accommodate you and you're off!
Or, if you don't want to run into this mystical deer and its odd predator companions in the middle of mortal peril or some other way, feel free to spot him running through the jungle exuding panic and psychic thoughts of 'shit!' 'holy crap!' 'where's the exit??'. OR toss your own challenge at him! Open to all challenges in the event and invented ones, go wild!]
BACK IN BLACK
[It's after finally escaping the jungle and then seeing Yuri's post that leads him to Keith and the others where he and Shiro rode to the rescue, that Lance finally turns back to himself. It happens in the middle of the night on the farther shores as he stares out at the ocean. The hallucinations are less here and seeing his friends in trouble, hurt and then getting his horns stuck in a wall like that… he felt handicapped, the whole ordeal woke him up more, made him more Lance than deer. He knows he needs to change back and try to brave what comes.]
v. carnivale
[After changing back to human, he just sort of spent the night on the beach… and woke up after a shed to another blood type. He sees the shed skin nearby and notices that he's no longer hallucinating mushrooms. His corruption is still up, but it's lessened enough that all he needs to cover the worst of it is a regular sized eyepatch rather than the large one he'd switched to that covers 1/4 of his face. His skin is still off in color and flaky, and he still has fangs, but his mind is closer to normal and without the hallucinations panicking him… he lets out a breath of relief and heads to the boardwalk to check out the last couple days of the carnival.
He can be found playing the carnival games, helping late sleepers to win their prizes with his sharp-shooting skills. Or just winning whatever prizes he feels like on his own to take the edge off of suddenly being human again. Some of the creepy dolls he wins, he just makes a face at and hands to the nearest child or even you.] Uh, I think this suits you way better.
[Other than that, he can be found both during the day and at night hanging out on the carousel or ferris wheel, munching on carnival food and just chillin. He probably looks pretty out of place as a grown young man on his own, lounging obnoxiously and incorrectly on these rides, feet up on a horse head or over the side of a ferris wheel cart. Is he drunk?]
vi. welcome
[He hears the drums again as a human and it's like he gets temporary amnesia about when he was brought to the jungle as a deer. He finds the game board and perhaps he finds it with you and you play it together, or he'll do it alone or with his omen again. Either way, he's back in the jungle and he's not… having a good time at all. Long story short: last time he was in a jungle setting he was tortured and killed. Upon immediate arrival, he'll start having a trauma response, breathing hard and backing up, body glowing blue-gold from his CRAU powers.] N-no, nope. Not… not this.
[Aaand, he might back right up into a trap, like quick sand or sentient vines or a giant frog. Stop him? Otherwise, later on he can be found looking around frantically and hopping from fallen branch to tree and trying to hide in the brush even when there doesn't seem to be any dangers. At least not ones you can see, pff. Even though he has survival skills, he's not immune to getting into bad situations, feel free to rescue him from a crushing massive anaconda or quicksand, any of the challenges or invented ones are welcome.
Or he can swing in and rescue you from a rushing river, a stampede or the mosquitoes, again any challenges and ideas are welcome. He may go a little overkill if it's the Trophy Hunter who is after both of you though, like… creating four small spheres of light (stars) and making them blow up (supernova) through a wide area he thinks he sees the Hunter. That's a lot of damage. He's breathing hard, eyes wild and then a bullet zips by his cheek through the fire and smoke.] AW, COME ON!
[He's glowing again, gearing up for more firepower, looking a biiit wild. But his powers are still not working correctly and he really should not… do that.]
vii. dark places of the world
[Getting sucked down and squeezed into a dark death hole is also… not his idea of a great time. Last time he was in underground tunnels was also deeply traumatic, but at least there's not corpses everywhere, that's an improvement. He'll have a similar immediate trauma response to the catacombs as he does the jungle when he first arrives, the sound of screams echoing in the distance and the smell of this place strongly brings back some flashbacks. He glows again (more muted because this place is damping all his powers), lighting up the space and starts frantically looking around and hyperventilating.] The deep place, i-it… shit. N-no. Nooonono.
[And with that, he'll crouch down and hug his head, rocking a bit. Eventually, he will pull out of it enough to start into the catacombs, finally seeing that there is a shrine here to the Moss King and it might not… be the deep place. Maybe. Shut up. He grabs a survival pack from the cubbies and heads in, only way out is forward, he can figure that much. The further in he goes, the less his powers work, he can't even seem to make a star to light the path and resorts to the flashlight in the pack. The whole journey, he is battling claustrophobia but when coming upon tight and narrow spaces that require spelunking skills to get through etc. he'll stop, tense and not happy at all.] You're kidding, right? Nah-uh, no way. That can't be the o-only way through. And do I hear nasty cave water on the other side? It'll- It'll totally mess up our skin!
viii. the incomprehensible maze
[The smells of corpses and the feeling he is not alone has Lance more and more on edge and jumpy. The sounds that are heard are sometimes heard by both of you… and sometimes only heard by him. The only signs he can make out are english and Spanish, and he tilts his head at the rest like it keeps moving around before his eyes.] The hell is that? Did that sign just give us the finger?!
[No… no, it did not. But regardless, it eventually leads you into a room with a challenge. If it's the dark water, Lance will hesitate and make a face before sighing and walking in… and boy, he sure has vertigo all of a sudden and is clinging to you. If it's the house on fire, he will immediately run in to save the "victims" and will need to be saved. If it's the room full of treasures, he'll find it easier to pass through since he doesn't yearn for treasures these days, if you're going Gollum on him he'll give you a weird look and won't get it but will exasperatedly try to physically drag you forward. In chronology of the seasons, he is not an expert in the patrons at all and will need help… please help, he's very lost and very stressed. And lastly, he'll absolutely be running for that exit and right into the mushroom pit, either grab him or tumble in with him.]
ix. dark places of the heart
[Then the corpses start to follow him and he's panicking again, grabbing onto you and asking if you see them too. He sees his mother, his sisters and brothers, his father and grandparents. And he sees Allura and Chloe and he's shaking with emotion and fear, guilt and grief. Tears manage to escape his eye (left is still covered by an eye patch due to corruption).] I'm sorry, I-
[The corpses of his loved ones each stop their pursuit when he stops and they don't attack… he doesn't know what they want, though. He's shaking like a leaf and looks over to you, not understanding. Or the corpses are your loved ones and he's giving you concerned glances and places a cautious hand on your arm, not sure what to say or do, but he'll follow your lead.
Much later, it's black hole with the warning 'hell is ahead…', and he stands in front of it beside you, breathing hard and fast and looking like he's about to have a breakdown. It's crushing him, he already has so many immense feelings of inadequacy and this hole is finding ones he barely even knew he had, it's finding every dark crevice and wound and pulling it open. He trembles and his knees feel weak, his voice lost and reduced to a small whimper in his throat. Are you suffering the same? Who will crack first and start admitting how horrible they are? If it's not you, Lance will start talking with a tight reluctance and pain, he's trying not to… doesn't want to, but he has to.]
I'm not a good enough pilot or Paladin, I failed as the second in command, I failed the team, I'm just some dumb kid from Cuba way in over his head and I'm weak, I couldn't fight off all the magic bullshit that made me h-hurt p- I'm- I deserve everything that happened to me because I wasn't enough, I-
[He takes in a sharp breath and stops. Placing his hands over his mouth, tears starting to all from his uncovered eye. Corruption is starting to build, the scar under his eyepatch widening to reveal a dark nebula under his skin. He hasn't admitted enough to fulfill the needs of this challenge, but these are things he's struggled to admit to for years.]
x. try to breathe
[From mid-March to the end of the month, in between the times he's in the jungle and catacomb levels and after, he can be found trying to just go about something resembling normal life in Trench. He'll avoid those blood blisters the moment he sees one burst on another (NPC) sleeper and has to fight off their beast form. If you'd like to team up in driving the beast outside of Trench to try and get them back to themselves… or kill it, he won't say no to a partner in hunting.
He can be found crouching by the blood hounds and talking to them like they're people who understand what he's saying.] Nice antlers, I had a pretty sweet pair of 'em a couple weeks ago.
[Other than that, he spends a lot of time down on the Farther Shores as usual, and can be spotted talking to the Ocean/Mariana once or twice, especially late in the evenings. The water lifts abnormally up like a still wave to 'interact' and a few times, Lance seems to be glowing and venting his feelings, pacing and making stars that he sends high up to blow up and make small aurora borealis and disturbing the surface of the water.
Lastly, he seems to have won some prizes in the levels… one is that shitty T-shirt that he is absolutely wearing over a long sleeve shirt while he talks to a glaceon. He seems to be sighing.] I mean, not to look a gift pokémon in the mouth or anything, but I've got a lot of animals to look after already… what do you even eat?
[The glaceon tilts her head at him and just lets out her cry in a questioning tone.]
WILDCARD
( ooc: I've given a lot of prompts, but if you still want something else or something specific, that's totally fine! either toss a prompt at me or if you want to plot, contact me at
Boy I seem to like putting these two in bad situations, don't I?
But now that she was seeing Lance, who she KNEW had his own insecurities mingled with the death of his loved ones and the people he cared about laid bare, she could feel her own desire to want to help him override those painful memories. This wasn't the time for her to be crippled by her own feelings! If anything, that was what this mass of darkness wanted them to do, to fail and to let everyone see them at their weakest.
So Luz did what she did best. She took his hand, and pushed back against her own pain to reassure him].
Lance. You've been through a lot. You're not weak. You're one of the strongest people I know. Other people might have crashed under this pressure. You keep going! You're strong, and definitely stronger than this thing in front of us!
guess it's just fun to torture them
He pulls his hand back, placing it with his other over his mouth and shakes his head silently. Afraid that if he tries to communicate to her verbally he'll just spew more dark feelings. The list of his insecurities could have them here forever and the hard truth is that there's no magic words that can overcome them in a single moment.]
Re: guess it's just fun to torture them
But she could try and help at least a little. She'd gotten to know a little more about Lance, and she was at least seeing how hard he struggled, how strong he tried to be despite all the bad things that happened to him. She could at least let him know she saw this and appreciated how much he did his best, no matter what.
Watching him though, she nodded, understanding he didn't want to keep talking, and at least stood by him. Luz knew if she was facing something that threatened to spill out her secrets, there was someone trying to help her.
Though Luz was pretty sure if she stared into the hole she'd be in the same way as Lance, she understood it was possible that there was no other way out of this other than doing just that.
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Its pull is intense, though and it's a struggle but not impossible. He just needs a moment to breathe to try and figure out what is going on here and how they can maybe get around it. The voices in his head are very loud in response to this hole and his struggle to get away from it and he keeps seeing things move, hallucinations of his own mind. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his back on the hole.
Just one step and another, but if he doesn't hear Luz coming with he will stop and look back.]
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[Luz closed her eyes, opening them again].
I don't think we can just walk away from this hole. It won't let us do that; you know that as well as I do. It's one of those things, isn't it? You have to admit stuff about yourself, for some lesson you have to learn about yourself. Like the river of corpses.
[Always with the corpses, this place. But she knew the score by now. She took a breath, then another, then turned her eyes and looked square into the hole.
At first, she didn't feel terribly bad, but she did feel the prickles of her skin, the knowledge she was being watched. That feeling gave away, and then she felt it: the burden of all the things she hated about herself, the faults mounting, more and more, until she felt she'd be buried under them].
I...I want Eda to come back. I don't think I ever felt so alone as when I found out she left, and I was mad at her. I'm horrible for that! She wouldn't have wanted to leave me! Would she? Was I too whiney, too dependent on her? Was she sick of having to take care of me and Margot? Did I...
Did I lose her because I didn't miss Mami enough?
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He listens to Luz'a confessions and steps shakily back to her side. Then, trembling he takes his hands from his mouth and places an arm around her shoulder. Gently, he urges her into a hug if she wants it. It's the only thing he can think to do in response to her confession to the darkness right now.]
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That she didn't deserve to have a mother figure in the first place.
It hurt to vocalize, but in her heart, she'd always wondered if that was why Eda was gone. It had already been a complicated situation because Luz hadn't wanted Eda in a place where she could suffer anymore than Eda wanting Luz to be there. The same would have been said if Luz's mom showed up here, but Eda had been the one Luz had relied on, who had made her brave enough to take on what these worlds threw at her.
She'd made her tough, and Luz had needed that. Part of her felt that this part Eda had fostered had taken the place of her mother's gentle but firm parenting, and all of that had coalesced into Luz somehow feeling like she was betraying one over the other.
"But I still want them here," Luz said softly to herself, and that's when she felt Lance's arm on her shoulder and she turned sharply into the hug.
She didn't want Lance to see her crying, but clearly that ship had sailed.
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People left Deerington all the time… and there was no good reason for it. It wasn't their choice, either. I know it hurts, but it's not your fault, it's nobody's fault… and it's okay to want them to be here with you.
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Thanks. I know that's true, and I shouldn't feel like it was my fault. I just feel like part of me always never was resolved being happy and content while my mom is without me.
[Too bad Luz has no idea about Vee, but that's another story].
But I still needed to hear that. I'm sure if Eda had it her way, she wouldn't have left.
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You feel how you feel. And I've figured out after all this time dealing with feelings that they don't really listen to logic very well… they just sort of happen. Like breathing. And… I also haven't seen my mom in years. I went home for a short stint back in the dream, but it didn't feel real. Or like enough… I don't think it's possible to be content without your mom, especially when you know she's out there somewhere…
[He was going to say 'thinking about you and missing you', but stops and trails off as he remembers that there's claims he's heard that their loved ones don't know they are gone here. That they are mere alternates or copies of themselves, a branch off from the main world they came from and there's another version of them that continued living their lives as normal… that thought hurts him deeply. He doesn't want to go there at all.]
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Exactly. I do miss her, all the time. Eda helped to fill some of that pain, and when she left it felt like I lost all of them. There are other people who can help a little with that void, but at the end of the day I'm alone and I see her face. I can't forget her.
[But she could at least try to brave the dark hole, now that she knew that. A part of her would always want to see her again, and it hurt to be away. Nevertheless, she'd continue on, because there were still reasons to keep going, after all].
What's her name? Your moms, I mean.
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And you shouldn't. Forget her, I mean. It hurts, but forgetting hurts worse.
[Then she asks about his mom's name and he stiffens, taking a step backward and then crossing his arms protectively.] …Elena
For some reason I don't have one with Luz's mom so this'll have to work
I know. It's one of the reasons I'm grateful I haven't died yet. Memories mean everything to me.
[She smiled]. It's a nice name, and I bet she loves you. My mom's Camila.
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And he finds himself at a loss for words, so he just nods and swiftly wipes at his face as a tear escapes one eye. Then he turns away to pretend like that just didn't happen.]
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Still, Luz was beginning to understand that ignoring that pain for pretending it wasn't there tended to be just as dangerous, and just showed itself in another way].
Sorry. I know it's not easy to think about.
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…I've wanted to go home for years. Pretty much since the day I left and got sucked into fighting a war on the other side of the universe. But… I didn't take the lighthouse back… b-because I made someone a promise, but also… I couldn't face them after all the ways I've failed… my team, my friends, myself …and I'm just not the person she remembers.
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I think she'd probably still want to see you. Moms are like that, they love their children even if they mess up badly. But I get what you're saying. If there was no promise that you'd forget everything about Deerington, that would mean you'd go home with the memories of everything bad that happened there, and no one would know. That would be a lot to carry.
You made a promise? That must have been a heck of a promise.
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I'd heard of people remembering it all after they took the lighthouse home. [It's not like he wanted to forget, though. There's a lot he wishes he could just delete out of his brain, but… a few things worth keeping too.] Yeah. I… promised my friend I'd take her home to my world so she could get away from what was gonna happen to her in hers. But… like right before the dream started collapsing… she disappeared. The lighthouses were right there and… I couldn't go through without her. So I waited in case she'd somehow turn up again.
…But maybe that was also an excuse to not face everyone I left behind as the person I am now.
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I had a friend in Deerington like that. If Eda had stayed and we talked about it, I'm sure I would have gone with her to the lighthouse, to save her from her fate home too. It was a pretty bad one too. I'm sorry about your friend.
Lance. You'd be yourself, no matter what world you end up in. Experiences make you different, but that shouldn't mean people stop caring about you. If I believed that, then I wouldn't have been able to go on after the cave people thing.
Because I didn't feel like ME after that for months.
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I know they would still care about me. That's part of the problem. [His voice cracks, going hoarse and he swallows, shrinking a bit more and not wanting to talk anymore. A pained sound resonates low in his chest.] I don't… know how to explain it.
[Not to her. And he doesn't know if he wants to try.]
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[His stammering said what he couldn't say: some things you just weren't comfortable talking about. This might be one of those times where what needed to be said would be swallowed down.
And that was bad].
Lance. If you don't want to tell me, I get it. It's private. But I think you better find someone to talk to about it and not keep that to yourself. What you were saying, that's usually a few steps away from letting corruption in.
[Luz had been saying reassuring things to herself and knew Varian had been similarly giving himself a pep talk that they could "handle" these things, not knowing that should be the warning sign].
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[On top of that is her connection to Reaper and how she tried to explain his actions when they first spoke on his post. He holds no ill feelings towards Luz, he sees all that as just a kid being naive, but it does cause a dent in his ability to trust and feel comfortable being more open towards her on a subconscious level.]
…Maybe we should head to the exit. Seems like this hole might be done messing with us.
[Maybe? It's hard to say, he's so used to resisting this stuff and he's confessed some failures, not all, but some… was it enough?]
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[Luz knew already that there was a LOT about Reaper she didn't know and had felt that when he was in the house and how much he kept to himself. Luz wasn't a fool: she understood that the side she saw from him was likely different from how much Lance might have seen. Unlike someone as boisterous as Darth Maul, how intense Reaper was was still mostly a mystery. All she knew was how he treated the people in the house, and for now that had to do].
Good idea. I don't think I'm up to having another whole episodes' worth of trauma myself. I KNOW you're not.