there's a monster in my closet

[reddosmod]

MAY 2022 EVENT

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Half man, half goat gazing through the sky in front of mountain.]
[Image Two: Deer-like skeletal creature talking in a forest.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Bees crawling out of and over a calm man's cheek.]
[Image Two: Humanoid figure with honeycomb skin.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Skull beside dried flowers.]
[Image Two: Red wilting flowers. ]

[NAVIGATION]

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

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

SELF EVALUATION

WHEN: May
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Body horror, heavy themes of dysphoria and body dysmorphia, acceptance of self, forced physical transformations.

---

An excerpt from Book of Bausphomette:

"They say you should walk a mile in someone's shoes before casting judgment. The true rhetoric can be applied to Bausphomette's version of 'self-evaluation.' It shouldn't come as a surprise that a Pthumerian would have a very different idea of self-evaluation than the typical person, but here we are and I'm going to give you a heads up: don't freak out about the fur.

Or scales. Really, it could be anything, but when your body starts to change into something you can't recognize, you're not going crazy and you're not turning into a Beast. Or okay, you're turning into a beast but not a Beast with a capital B. You will be yourself, have your normal personality, your normal thoughts, your normal habits...You just...Won't exactly look like yourself. People have been known to turn into minotaurs or sprout ten wings or become half-goat on top and all fish on the bottom. Either way, you're not going to be physically recognizable.

But you will be yourself. You will just have new vocal cords or have to learn a new means of communication. Telling your loved ones about your sudden transformation might be a bit alarming, but I think that's kind of the point. Bausphomette seems to believe the monstrous transformation will allow people to consider different parts of themselves that are usually hindered by social judgments. Are you really happy with yourself enough to not mind being a beast? How does this impact your relationship with your body? Does your body matter to you as much as you believed? Can you adapt to this new body and come to love it?

Granted, not everyone has hated this process. It has made some parts of life especially exciting...If you know what I mean. Thankfully the process doesn't last! The general idea is that once you have accepted something about yourself you will begin to turn back to your usual body! Of course, for more stubborn folks, this has been known to take a few months...Try not to be too stubborn or resistant to the new change! ...It will only make it worse."

QUICK FACTS 1. Your character can have various monstery attributes during May. They should be monsterous - not cute little ears or a non-distracting tail.

2. The lesson the characters learn can vary greatly and depend on what players choose to explore.

3. Feel free to go as heavy-handed with the body horror. Your character can magically just wake up with the body or go through some painful transformation.

4. Characters should NOT have mental alteration during this period. The point is that they are still themselves regardless of their new appearance.

5. Have the size of the beast be appropriate to the setting's size.

6. Temporary powers can be gained through the beast's body for the month. Do not break the setting.

HUMMING IN THE SKIN

WHEN: May
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Increased bouts of mindless violence, optional insect-based horror, insects in skin, honeycomb in skin, bodies as hives for insects, extreme body horror.

---

An old article clipping was gathered from a newspaper that used to run in Trench. It seems like the rest of the article is missing except for the end:

"And, he said, "They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What's blood for, if not for shedding?"

We do not know what this Sleeper's intent was, but we do know the impact lasted. Reports of symptoms include feeling as though your skin is humming, that there's itchiness you can't quite get rid of like something is always crawling over your skin and around inside of you. Some people claim that this remains a mental only terror that keeps them up at night. Some have been known to scratch open holes in their skin and pull themselves apart just to make sure they aren't filled with bugs. We wish we could say that it was only a paranoid curse, but it seems there is some foundation to the concern.

Some who have gotten cuts or other injuries at this time will discover various insects, but especially bees crawling out from exposed wounds. Once you have gotten an injury, the humming seems to get worse. A descent to madness happens swiftly, but all at once, you become calm and content with the situation. Your skin slowly becomes honeycombed, bees moving in and out of you freely. You become a walking, talking hive.

But of course, that's just the worst-case scenario. For the most part, people who are itching mindlessly seem to be driven to bouts of violence, wanting to get rid of the feeling by randomly attacking those nearby. Strangely enough, the bloodshed during these attacks does not seem to contribute to blood pollution.

Instead, blood shed during this time of month seems to be instantaneously soaked up by your immediate surroundings. The bees from these people have been seen flying everywhere, and instead of collecting pollen, they seem to be collecting blood magic. Either to bring it back to their walking hives or using it for other deeds..."

IMPOSTERS

WHEN: May-June
WHERE: Outside where flowers can be found
CONTENT WARNINGS: Demonic, violent, blood thirsty flowers?? Parasite style monsters.

---

From Plantlife and You: Trench Edition:

"This is a tricky subject as it does not technically have to do with actual plantlife but rather the nefarious imitation of plantlife.

As spring begins be cautious of the plants around you. It might be lovely to see tulips popping open and other spring delights coming to light. We all like to see the splashes of color pop up around Trench, especially after such cold, long months...But be wary.

Among these flowers are insidious imposters. Telling them apart from the original flowers is almost impossible. You can only do your best to be careful around any plantlife you interact with. They look like flowers, but these creatures are demonic beasts who have perfectly cultivated a flawless mimic. Instead of sunlight and water, they soak in the blood of Trench up through their roots. If you pick the wrong flower, blood will squirt out from the roots and vines.

The bees from Sleeper bodies seem intent on pollinating these exact flowers with blood, leaving little bloody streaks in their wake, but the bees jump between normal flowers and the imposters, making it difficult to properly figure out which is which.

I know what you're thinking: okay, so what? They eat blood, big deal, they are just flowers...

Ha! Did you really think it would be that simple? No, no, these imposters will invade your gardens and your homes. Their little vines will wrap around your foot when you're in the garden or taking a walk. It's not evident at first, but it doesn't take much for a flower to grow on your body. Harmless, painless, but they will suck your blood dry. They have been known as silent killers, parasitic, draining you of life and energy and magic slowly but surely.

And the catch is once you have one flower growing on you, more will come, and it can distort your personality and make you feel or act as though you are drunk. Things won't make sense and you won't exactly know how to ask for help. Your only luck is that someone else will notice. Taking the flowers off requires an icy bath or shower and some serious salt scrub. To prevent this in general, you will want to keep your skin covered thoroughly and not allow pollen to brush against you since that's all it takes. Good luck!"

CODING

Comments

[noniad]

[When the bees settle on his skin Ortus holds himself in near-perfect stillness, repressing the urge to recoil with ease of long practice. They have done him no harm. If not for what they have done, what they are doing, to young Gideon, he would have no quarrel with them.

Perhaps they may be persuaded to take up habitation elsewhere, as other such insects may be persuaded, and he represses the rise of his gorge at the thought as he did his flinch. So preoccupied is he by not thinking of such possibilities that he is caught off-guard by Gideon's - confession?]

I do not recall you ever having done so. [He says, seriously, eyes heavy with question when they seek hers.] In what way do you believe you have done me ill?

[Harrowhark's unburdening had been like being crushed under the rock rolled away, but it had a terrible logic which Ortus could follow. This, he cannot fathom, but he has read other books since he came here, ones devoted to the care of larger, more sensitive creatures than her swarm.

(Even when you shouldn't be, and there is no making up for that, but he must make it the work of whatever remains of his existence to try.)]

cw: death of parents, discussion of murder

[lipochrome]

[ He wouldn't know, of course. Nobody in the Ninth knows, except for one person. Where Gideon and Ortus are from, they keep secrets like breathing, and the secrets are nothing like her insects. They stay buried deep beneath her skin, beneath her bones and muscles, burrowed all the way into the heart.

The hive sings: that's wrong. The hum says: it shouldn't be this way. Didn't you spend eighteen years fighting to be out in the open? ]

I killed your father.

[ Gideon says, light and gentle, like it weighs nothing. Like it is nothing. She tips her head towards the light in the sky, and she finds she does not even need her sunglasses. ]

Harrow's, too. And her mother. I couldn't leave anyone out, apparently.

[ She does not look back at Ortus, because this is the part where he gets up and leaves Gideon alone with her hive. She won't really be alone, though, and so Gideon finds she isn't even afraid of that. Not anymore. ]

cw: suicide, parental death, child abuse

[noniad]

[Ortus is as immovable as stone, as animate, at Gideon's softly spoken confession. The only sound is the hum of insects about them, the wind passing through the grasses and the flowers in riot under a warmly shining sun.

When he breaks the quiet, it is with gentleness of another sort, softness shaded with terrible grief. Not for any of the dead, who are long past desiring or deserving of it, but for her.]

My father took his life at the order of the Reverend Father and the Reverend Mother, who took their own. Whatever part you believe you have in that, you were not the cause. You were a child, ill-loved, much-blamed, scapegoat for the sins of our sinners' House. You had no more power to cause such a thing than you did to alter the orbit of the Ninth itself.

[He had wondered, in the dull, furtive way he wondered at anything in that still and haunted place, at the change that had set upon her, at the alignment of certain events, at the hidden workings of whatever thing had been the convulsive undoing of their already dying House. He had wondered, and he had ceased to wonder, and he had looked away.]

Gideon. [His eyes are flecked with rich, dark earth, unwavering.] You did not kill my father. You did not kill Harrowhark's father, or her mother.

cw: suicide, parental death, child abuse

[lipochrome]

[ His words are sweet as honey, and maybe, in another time, Gideon would have loved to hear them. It is difficult to love a thing you know is wrong, and harder still for love to cut through the blanketing swarm of the hive. What Gideon feels, primarily, is a dull sort of peace, a pleasant fog of non-emotion. ]

I did. I told them a secret so terrible, they knew they had to die.

[ Gideon finally looks back at Ortus, the same almost-smile still on her face. She laughs, just a little. It's funny, isn't it?

It's funny. ]

I thought it would make them hate Harrow, and like me. But I forgot that the most important Ninth House rule is to keep your mouth shut.

[ Gideon has never been good at that. Look at her, she's breaking the rule even now. ]

cw: suicide, parental death, child abuse, insects

[noniad]

[When Ortus speaks, the throb in his voice is not tearful, for all that it resembles that more common sound.]

A rule I followed to unconscionable fault.

[It strengthens as he goes on, a sorrow unlike those Gideon knows from him, all meek and dull in their own right. This one has force like the drag of gravity, or time.]

If there was any rule I should have broken, it was that one. If there was any cause called me to act, it should have been yours. We were all that was left, and I should have sought to protect you, and I did not.

I knew what the Reverend Father and Mother had done to the others, and why I was spared, even if I did not allow myself to know what it was that I knew - and I could see what was done to you in the wake of it, the weight of their guilt made your punishment, and I let my cowardice to avert my eyes, because I could not bear the shame of witnessing what I did not act to stop.

[Ortus looks at her, hive-ridden, numbed to the horror of all the teaming things that beneath her skin put there by forces outside of herself, and he knows the flimsy-thin joyless laugh, the remove at which one may stand and feel none of what has been done to you, the dead, calm safety of indifference.

He opens his arms, and he leans forward to gather her into them with unassuming firmness.]

I am sorry, Gideon. I am sorry that I did not tell you the truth, and I am sorry that I was no brother to you, and I am so sorry that I left you to face what I would not.

cw: insects, references to child abuse

[lipochrome]

[ Gideon's skin does not smooth over, but at some point, the insects stopped humming. Her smile has fallen, and she feels small, like this, somehow. Exposed.

It's a sensation Gideon has spent years running from, one that she hasn't felt since sitting in a cell, by herself, no older than eleven years old. There is no joke she can make here, no balm she can apply. It terrifies her. Does Ortus not know that? How can he not take one look at her, and know immediately?

(Here is a fact: Gideon Nav cannot allow herself to get too frightened. There has never been anyone to comfort her. If it happens, it will never stop.)

Ortus gathers her in his arms, and Gideon is surprised she knows what to do. She wraps her arms around him, the person she used to think of as boring now safe. She holds him tight, a tether, an anchor, a --

Best not to go there. How would Gideon know what that felt like?

She stays like that for a long time, silent except for the odd hitch of breath that means she definitely isn't crying. When she pulls away, her eyes are damp and bright and clear. There's no malice in her smile, anymore, no daggers pointed inwards. ]

Thanks.

[ It's a small, choked syllable, but for once, there's no reverb to it. ]

[noniad]

[There are few things that Ortus is skilled in. This is one of them. He embraces her into the broad, warm expanse of him, his arms wide enough to cover the sweep of her back, and he does not move save for a slow, steady rock, almost too slight to notice. He does not hush. He does not ply her with more words. And he does not weep, because his tears are a burden she should not bear.

He lets her go when she is ready, his hands tracing down to her elbows for one last, gentle press before he draws away. Their knees still brush through his robes. He pretends he does not notice as he looks into her clarified eyes, the mote of indifference within them washed clean.]

I owe you your life.

[He states it plain, at last, this knowledge that has lain upon him since he came to understand her absence, the purpose of his dredging from the River.]

There is nothing you cannot ask of me. I would have you know that.

[She may not believe him. He would not have believed it, when he was her age. He barely believes it of himself now, for all of its truth.]