My blind optimism to blame

[reddosmod]

APRIL 2022 EVENT

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A large green butterfly.]
[Image Two: A woman staring in a daze at light orbs floating around her face.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: A volcano with meteors falling down around it.]
[Image Two: A ball of quivering light hovering in the dark with woman standing in front.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: A woman staring at a mirror-like humanoid being staring back at her.]
[Image Two: A woman in a field of grass with humanoid-shaped flower sculptures nearby.]

[NAVIGATION]

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

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

MIGRATION OF MOONLIT BUTTERFLIES

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere outside
CONTENT WARNINGS: Hopelessness/corruption, heavy themes of mental trauma/health, killing of gentle creatures.

---

Excerpt from BEASTS OF DEER COUNTRY Chapter 12: Migrations:

"One of the most beautiful natural phenomena of Deer Country is the migration of the mysterious Moonlit Butterflies. These giant creatures are most often the size of a house, with exceptional wingspans. Fear not: they are not violent creatures. Most will fly well above the city of Trench, leaving trails of glittering orbs of light that fall all throughout the city. However, it is common for some Moonlit Butterflies to land and rest throughout Trench. Despite their massive size, these creatures appear to weigh very little, able to rest harmlessly on homes, lampposts, and the like. Don't be surprised to find some scattered throughout your neighborhood.

They have a gentle aura about them and are most famous for their behemoth wings which glow a radiant green. They are aptly named due to their ability to store immense power from the moon during April and are seen as distant children of Argonaut. Being near them will enchant the air with the scent of amber and fresh linen, and you may hear a soothing song emit from these beasts.

Despite their rare and incredible beauty, it is wise to not linger in their presence no matter how captivating they are...And they are captivating. Many residents of Trench have been known to stop and stare, enthralled by the wings or the orbs of light that are shed by the butterflies. Those who have been staring for too long will have an unnatural glowing green glaze over their eyes, obscuring their pupil and gaze. This is known as the Moonlit Drain.

These butterflies do not gather all of their energy from moonlight...but they gather it from hopeful beings as well. It is why they gather among populations of sentient beings. They soak up all hope in the area and the longer you stand in their presence, the more hopeless you may become. Standing in the presence of a Moonlit Butterfly has driven people to rapid, severe corruption in under ten minutes. It is best to avoid these butterflies no matter how mesmerizing they may be to look at.

The little orbs of light are actual manifestation of everyone's hope. Touching them may restore hope and they can be gathered into jars for future treatments of corruption. They do not "go bad" as they are the essence of emotion. One way to restore hope to a corrupt or beast-ridden soul is to slay one of the Moonlit Butterflies. They are incredibly easy to kill as they are naturally delicate and non-hostile.

Be warned: the one who slays a Moonlit Butterfly will be consumed with instantaneous corruption and possibly even beasthood. But once the butterfly has been slain, anyone in the surrounding area besides the killer will have corruption alleviated. Killing a Moonlit Butterfly has been known to fill people with incredible grief and guilt. Few have survived."

WONDERKIND

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere outside
CONTENT WARNINGS: Possible spoilers per canon, time/vortex style presence, variety of possible monsters.

---

Excerpt from an essay titled "The Wonderkind Pthumerian" from the book The Curious Nature of the Weakest Pthumerian: Argonaut and Misconceptions:

"Most of the other Patron Pthumerians are known for exceptional strength and durability during trying times. It is only Argonaut in which people think of weakness. They believe the Patron to be a fickle, tiny thing with little worth, but there is a unique and powerful quality to Argonaut that should not be overlooked.

This is the phenomenon known as Wonderkind. It has only been known to happen once every few years and only ever during April, but those who have seen it would testify to the hidden strengths of our explorer Patron. There is much to be said about curiosity and resilience, after all. Argonaut has wandered through the lives of many without most ever realizing it. He has likely seen into your own life, curious about the odd Sleepers that show up on the shores of this world.

Wonderkind appears as a meteor shower, but these are no meteors. Balls of flaming light will fall from the sky, silent, beautiful, striking, and somewhat ominous and terrifying. They rain upon Trench in intervals throughout April. They do not crash into the city so much as glide throughout. These balls of light are shimmering orbs that have split open time and space itself into unraveling cocoons, exposing portals into worlds foreign to this one.

These portals cannot be entered for they are not portals out of this world...But portals into this world. Sleepers have claimed to find beloved items and pull them out of these portals. Some may find old pets that come out to greet them. It can be a lucky and cherished event for many. Tragically, these portals do not seem to be able to bring in sentient beings applicable characters, but you may be able to talk briefly to a loved one who isn't yet in this world.

But that's not all that can crawl through these portals...Monsters from other worlds have been known to flock to these portals and make their way through. Monsters from your worlds or other worlds slip in to wreak havoc on the streets of Trench. It is during this time that it is of the utmost importance that our Hunters take up arms and protect the vulnerable. If you recognize the monsters or disasters from your world entering ours, then please, make sure to caution those against it.

The portals close after a few hours and cannot be manually closed by anyone. Nothing can be sent into portals, but one can stand by a portal and guard it for potential dangers. Portals from your world may reappear several times throughout the month, so don't let your guard down for even a moment, and always expect the worst even when hoping for the best."

Quick Facts:

1. Respect the setting. Do not bring in monsters that would be capable of destroying the world/city/etc.

2. Things like unique plants/items can be gained through these portals.

3. You do not need to engage with portals from your own canon. You can invent new worlds, engage with other canons, or alternate universes. It's up to you.

FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Instant beasthood, corruption of soul, draining of soul, replication of soul, mistreatment of sex workers/night walkers.

---

An excerpt from a journal kept by a Night Walker named Charlotte Finch. Finch was known for being one of the first established Night Walkers and was known for her advocacy on the front of Night Walker work and its relationship to beasthood. This journal is kept in the Archives. It contains content pertinent to Beasthood yet, unfortunately, due to ongoing biases against Night Walkers, this journal is kept in the autobiography section rather than the section for beasthood. Good luck finding it.

"the job of the Night Walker is, of course, undervalued by this world. we do our best to soothe the troubled souls of this place and yet they continue to doubt our worth. what must we do to convince them? must we wield blades to show them how we fight? must we shed blood to prove our dedication? must we pick up books to show our intelligence? nei, we not do that. we sleep beside our worn hunters and rest heads upon the chests of scholars and hold the tired hands of architects. we guide the way to light in a way disciples could never.

all us are valuable, it be true, but why must the night walker be left to the wayside? why must our duties be written off? why must it be that it always a night walkers blood in the streets that leaves no tears to be shed? nei, nei, it is hatred of those who understand the soul and body have a close connection.

you know what i believe? these souls of ours change the landscape of our bodies. you cannot have one without the other. when the soul is corrupt, it only be natural that the body corrupts, turning rigid and hideous and monsterous and beastly. aye yes i have seen it myself, though none of the others believe except for other night walkers.

you see, there is a shape that comes to us in the Long Night of april, a shape much like our own. looking like a person ought to look but with no face and no features, like a mirror glimmering in the shape of you. they look like us, and they will mimic us. these odd mirror beings is the shape of our soul, you see, and once it finds you, it will copy you, and you will be driven mad! mad! how does this thing move as you move? how does it replicate what you replicate?

aye, it is your soul, my friend. your soul in a shape you can see. or something like it, may not soul be in your lexicon. it is you, as you are it. it is the Tether between you and beasthood, see what i say. the Tether will begin to soak into you if you let it, if you let it consume you, and it will consume you rapidly. people have been known to be ravaged by the Tether and turn into beasts within seconds, AYE yes, seconds, not minutes, into a vicious beast. the Tether wins.

But you need not let it be a victor, my friend. you see, we proved it, we did, us night walkers, we proved to lay with the Tether is to soothe the Tether. Allow yourself the kindness of another soul, another companion. touch and feel and express companionship. holding the hand of your lover or your friend or your brother or sister will cause the Tethers to weaken before ye very eyes! i do swear it, my friend, i should not lie on a subject i hold so dear.

you see, when we hold one another dear, when we cherish one anothr truly and wholly, we abate the darkness in our souls. listen to your companions, my sweet friends, and let your souls heal, and you can stop the Tether from consuming. you see, you see. surely you see. this is what it looks like. the Tether is always with us, but only in April under this moon can we see it always and will it be vicious and invasive. do not allow it.

do not allow it."

Quick Facts:

1. Tethers will take the exact body shape/size of you and mimic your moves. They may follow you around for several hours/days. Once they decide to "consume" you, it will be quick. It will essentially look like your body is turning metallic and then you become a beast.

While Charlotte states it happens in a matter of seconds, this can happen in several hours/days as well. Depends on the character and their general resolve.

2. People can be pulled back from this through emotional support whether verbally or physically and general acts of kindness. It's the sincerity that matters here. You do not need to be familiar with the person to help them.

3. Everyone can see each other's Tethers so you can determine how severe someone's Tether has become. The more severe the Tether, the more silvery the impacted person will look.

4. Tethers cannot be destroyed with weaponry/attacks. Trying will only hurt the person they are mimicking. You could actually kill someone by trying to "kill" their Tether. The tether will vanish with those who died but reappear once they have reincarnated.

CODING

Comments

[hearthebell]

[Sometimes, the choices are a rock and a hard place. Sometimes it's about getting what you can out of a stone. Sometimes it's about knowing that one will be entombed, but at least getting to choose where and how.

It's something. And when there's nothing else, that becomes everything.

Not flipping off Paul, in this case, has become everything. The cold and dark that frame such a small universe make it seem as though it will be easy to dissociate for the duration of what that costs, but he learns, extremely quickly, that disconnecting from his body is just not possible when he is regrowing a hand.

He's seen cadavers. He's seen corpses in every state and stage of decay, every horrible thing that can be done to a human body in the name of cruelty or passion or calculated criminal necessity. It still doesn't prepare him for the surreality of The Emperor creating life from nothing, pulling something neat and gathered from void and entropy, and manages it with an obscene sort of tenderness that is both violating and strangely, sickeningly paternal.

Kira couldn't do that; a true god could, and as The Emperor steadies and strengthens his heartbeat and flushes him with new blood, it feels like a different kind of death.

For Paul; it's for Paul. And that's bearable, until his improving mental clarity kicks him in earnest, and he's reminded that he is also supposed to be grateful, and sorry.

It's a long, untenable and utterly exhausting list. Though he's freshly mended of wounds, The Emperor slyly salts him anyway. The bit, as though to suggest that this Lazarus is inauthentic, not actually having earned the miracle.

That's fine; it's true. What's not fine is the notion that the Messiah is, in fact, authentic, with the grace to perform the miracle for the unworthy.

Healthier than he's been in weeks, L is in fact not fine. His voice is careful; he speaks with measured intention, peering intently at The Emperor's face while he is still inspecting his work in his warm, skilled hand. Eye contact, after all, can make even the most improbable statement seem more sincere.

Paul hadn't asked for sincerity; not really. The point of asking someone to lick a boot is not for them to learn to love the taste of leather.]

I apologize for stealing from you.

[Done. The bare minimum, but exactly what was asked for, in a tone that is neither gentle or petty. Because he's not sorry; he is glad for what he has memorized cover-to-cover. He would do it again; he will, or something like it, just with a recalibrated strategy when he can once more call himself "fine."]

[terriblepurpose]

[It all comes in a flood.

Paul witnesses the miracle from within and without, the reconstitution of what was lost the dim mirror of its destruction, and citric acid blossoms like fission through the tender cavities of his skull. The greyed world cuts into vivid relief, contrasts picked out so sharply they punch through his pupils into the soft tissue of the nerves behind them, bright illusory flashes shivering electric into his visual perception.

His eyes surge with saltwater as he takes a stunned, punched in gasp of a breath, and in the stead of thought-obliterating agony there is left the space for guilt to unfurl in dark, dripping fronds as he watches the performance that plays out before him. There's an intimacy to it that he almost can't stand to see, but this is the script he asked to be read. He has to see it through.

The nod he gives Lazarus after is small, the barest tilt, eyes dark and sunken in the slicking of moisture he hasn't raised hands to wipe away yet. It's enough for him, gratitude squirming in murky blue-green depths.

(And how can he be grateful to both of them? To the man who set the trap, and the man who fell into it? How long can he sustain the contradiction, and in what way will it collapse? He can't think of that, not yet, not here.)

Now all that remains is to see if God accepts this act of contrition in the spirit it was given.]

[necrolord]

[ Paul makes a sound. John does not turn to him, occupied as he is with the scrawny thief before him, but he notes it. Paul is the real center of this orbit; his presence is the gravity which keeps the pair of them in tune. Lazarus would try his damndest to dash himself against the Emperor's mercy until he finds it end, otherwise.

So it's the bare minimum, sure, but even this scant and stilted apology expresses more sense than he'd expect without Paul beside them. He is under no illusion that it's anything other than a show. They're all in agreement, here. This messy deal is done. ]

Don't do it again and we'll be golden.

[ He pats Lazarus on the now-restored hand, like a little there there, and releases him. God, job done and ultimatum pleasantly made, shifts back to let the space stand between Lazarus and Paul. ]

[hearthebell]

[The space that the Emperor leaves behind once he's parted with a touch of mock-comfort might as well be a gulf. If he'd set it up that way, intentionally, it would have been a masterstroke on the necromancer's part, standing aside as if to say see how badly you've chosen to hurt him?

There's something else there, too. A moon keeping tides on course, the gravity to rein in what the Emperor rightly marks as a tendency for L to smudge out the line he toes as he courts danger.]

Take him home,

[He says to the Emperor in a voice like string, then, with more volume and certainty,]

You need to take him home.

[Before Paul falls to pieces, before L has to look him in the eyes. Never has an order sounded so much like a plea coming from the detective.]

[terriblepurpose]

[This is how the world of kings works. This is what Paul has tried to explain to Lazarus in circuitous loops and extended analogy; this is what holds the door shut against chaos. Everything and everyone in their place, and sometimes, that means putting people back into theirs.

It's done. A numb resolution that settles in the gouged path of disaster, muddied but still waters. (Don't do it again, as if they all don't know that he will, but they can pretend a while longer; he has time, and whatever he can make out of that time.) Paul presses up to his feet in a slow, puppet-string rise, shaking his hands at the wrists like he can flick dried blood from them like water, and he doesn't flinch from take him home beyond the flutter of lowered lashes over his averted eyes.]

You'll go somewhere safe. [Contained, pressurized, a bubble of atmosphere plunged into deep water and buckling under it.] Tell me. Then we'll go.

[As if he can transmute the order (plea) to one given to him, spin the current that's dragging them towards dim future echoes of this conversation in another direction by word alone.]

[hearthebell]

[The last thing on L's mind is moving. He could, and may, sit here all night in his own blood in a state of shock that may no longer be physically dangerous, but consumes him all the same. No one would be the wiser, if the Emperor just takes Paul home.

Of course it won't be so simple and swift a departure, because Paul has an order-plea of his own. It's unexpected though perhaps it shouldn't be; they are not strangers or enemies in spite of the gulf. They're only here at all because both of them cared a little too much; it stands to reason that Paul would care, now.

So, he tells him, nodding with such overapplied energy that his teeth rattle.]

I will... of course. I'll do it.

[It's not a lie if the intention is there. It's not a lie if he perhaps can't; this was a safe place by his standards, after all, until it wasn't.

Hopefully it's enough. His eyes flick meaningfully back to the Emperor. Please, go. Now.]

[necrolord]

[ Brutal to watch, honestly. Lazarus says Take him home without a scrap of remaining protest that God can, and should, and will. Lazarus says it to God and not to Paul. Lazarus has given up protesting at God's house being Paul's home. They are all, with finality, on the same page.

Lazarus is pleading; Paul is hollowed-out; there's no need to drag this out further, not when it'd be a hell of a messy dead horse. Diminishing returns for everybody present. Better to let them end on a note to think about.

Better to end on Lazarus's concession and God's mercy.

He touches a hand to Paul's shoulder, again. Barely-there, steadying, a warm press which lifts away as he turns. Something gentle is back in his tone. ]

Let's give him his space.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul leans into the fleeting touch of God's steadying hand blank-faced and mute. He turns to trail behind him with downcast eyes that do not flit back to Lazarus, because Paul knows his mythology, and to look back at the ghost in the mouth of the Underworld is to both be lost, consumed by an all-too-human flaw.

They are an interminable distance from the iron tang of clinging air when Paul stops, boots crunching on loose, broken stone with the suddenness of it. He closes his hands into fists that barely tremble, tipping his head back to stare blindly into the starred sky.

To not look back is to leave something else behind. Dimly, through a caul, Paul grasps its shape.

(Sharkskin fingers tearing at his face with Paul's hands around its neck, its voice his own voice in his head, its eyes not unshaded blue or burning yellow or ash grey, not empty white, not depthless black -)

When he looks away from the vast unreachable expanse above, there is only a breath where it shows, a ruination of despair bleeding into numb resolution, and that would be bad enough. What's worse, what he knows, is the slivers of desperation long past hope shot through his green eyes like dark veins of infection.

He does not fall to his knees in repentance or prayer or apology. He doesn't make a sound, traitor tongue stitched to the roof of his mouth, as he falls back into step after the future guiding him home.]