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riverviewlogs2017-10-01 06:14 pm
- !mod post: holiday,
- !mod post: monthly mingle,
- httyd: hiccup haddock iii,
- logan: laura,
- marvel (616): bucky barnes,
- marvel (616): loki laufeyson,
- marvel (616): steve rogers,
- marvel (mcu): loki,
- marvel (mcu): sam wilson,
- marvel (mcu): thor,
- original: shigeru miyata,
- star trek (tng): beverly crusher,
- the adventure zone: taako taaco,
- voltron: shiro,
- ✖ chb chronicles: nico di angelo,
- ✖ dc comics (rebirth): jason todd,
- ✖ dc comics (rebirth): jonathan kent,
- ✖ dctv (flash): cisco ramon,
- ✖ dctv (flash): eddie thawne,
- ✖ dmmd: aoba seragaki,
- ✖ ergo proxy: re-l mayer,
- ✖ ffxiv: x'rhun tia,
- ✖ ffxv: gladiolus amicitia,
- ✖ ffxv: ignis scientia,
- ✖ homestuck: dave strider,
- ✖ kuroshitsuji: ciel phantomhive,
- ✖ kuroshitsuji: undertaker,
- ✖ marvel (616): angela,
- ✖ marvel (616): stephen strange,
- ✖ marvel (mcu): margaret 'peggy' carter,
- ✖ marvel (ultimates): tony stark,
- ✖ miraculous ladybug: marinette (ladybug,
- ✖ mushishi: ginko,
- ✖ original: jamie dodger,
- ✖ original: mordred,
- ✖ original: rin,
- ✖ overwatch: genji shimada,
- ✖ overwatch: hana song,
- ✖ the adventure zone: lucretia,
- ✖ the adventure zone: lup taaco,
- ✖ the adventure zone: magnus burnsides,
- ✖ the walking dead: javier garcia,
- ✖ vikings: ivar ragnarsson
introductory mingle: FEAST OF THE DYING
what: Introductory Log and Feast of the Dying
when: Feast of the Dying from October 1st-8th; various other prompts over the whole month of October.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines
In the days leading up to October 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: the Feast of the Dying. There is an old, widely-known, and widely-believed superstition or proverb in Riverview Quarantine: 'The greater your fear of death, the easier it is for death to find you.' This is a cornerstone belief of a lot of the residents of the Quarantine, most of whom have survived intensely difficult and violent pasts on their own worlds and who are still willing and eager to throw themselves into exploring and settling new worlds, starting their lives fresh. To honor this spirit, the Feast of the Dying is a celebration of the transition between life and death, an opportunity to face death both figuratively and literally, and come out on top.
During the month of October, a particular natural phenomenon on the moon weakens the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead, allowing for the crossover of those dead into the world of the living, with ghosts from the pasts of both the residents and the Quarantine itself to take corporeal form. The festivities during this time feature tests of courage in highly haunted places, escape rooms both virtual and physical with varying levels of danger, and the week-long Feast of the Dying itself, between October 1st and 8th this year.
i. ghosts from the past
During the 10th month of every year on the moon, due to a complex series of chemical, electromagnetic, and magical forces that no one has ever exactly distinguished or completely understands, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are weakened almost to the point of nonexistence. During this time, residents of the moon are able to see and interact with the dead - ghosts, manifesting in ways that run the gamut from being a strange sense of being watched or being visible or audible all the way to more corporeal spirits that can affect the world around them. The barriers are weaker in some parts of the city than they are in others, with some areas experiencing little to no ghost activity, while others are so populated with these ghosts that residents can barely go a few feet without running into one. The ghosts are generally the unsettled dead, people who died violently, or who were lost, seeking a place to call home, and their behavior is as varied as it was while they were alive. Some ghosts are angry and vengeful, some are simply lonely and lost.
While some people tend to interact with the ghosts only a little and as necessary, others avoid them as completely as possible, and yet others actively seek out souls who are suffering and try to ease that so they can stop coming back year after year. There are other people who have found that ghosts from their home worlds have come through with them, following them through the portal when they arrived, even if they did not die on the moon...
Whether facing death or making peace with those who have died, this is a time to reflect.
A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Characters may see or interact with ghosts from the Quarantine's past. These people will be as varied as the NPCs, from a multitude of different worlds, and characters are welcome to either engage or avoid, as players wish.
● Most Quarantine-based ghosts will have died in either the Great War with the neighboring reality or in the Pandemic that wiped out the population of the Abandoned City years ago.
● Characters may also see or interact with ghosts from their own or other characters' canons, providing the character in question is dead in canon and is not currently being played in the game.
● Canon-based ghosts should not be simply transplanted into the game as they were in canon - they are ghosts, and therefore 'not quite right,' and should not be used as an excuse to NPC a canonmate for a month. These ghosts are there to be used as plot devices to open up new avenues of CR, to create angst, to help a character make peace with their past, or other similar reasons.
● Ghosts should not be complete corporeal physical presences indistinguishable from living people, but barring this, how strongly the ghosts manifest and how much they can interact with the world around them is up to player discretion. Ghosts shouldn't be present the whole month straight, but can disappear and reappear at random times.
● Mod questions and plotting regarding this prompt can be found here.
ii. the feast of the dying
The month's holiday is named after a long-standing tradition in the Quarantine - the Feast of the Dying - that starts at sundown on the first day of the month and continues until sunrise on the ninth day. The Feast of the Dying is a costumed masquerade-style party that is continuously available for the entire week. Set up by volunteers specializing in both magic and science, the Feast of the Dying is hosted in a large conference center that has been decorated and magically altered to provide a very formal, intensely creepy atmosphere. The decor can run the gamut from fancy and classy decorations featuring iconic skeletons or ghosts to incredibly realistic catacombs or any other frightening settings that you can think of. Rooms often become more and more foggy the more people enter them to mingle, and in many rooms the air pressure will be slightly played with to make the atmosphere seem more oppressive and spooky. Costumes and masks are required, and anything from a Halloween-style costume to a formal outfit with mask is acceptable.
Players can feel free to go wild with ideas for decor at the Feast, including linking to inspiration images in their posts - it is, essentially, like having a Masquerade ball inside a disturbingly realistic haunted house.
The venue the Feast is held in includes several large rooms intended for dancing with different themes and decorations that can change off and on throughout the week, two large dining rooms where feasts will be held at mealtimes and snacks or drinks (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) will be promptly served to anyone who sits at one of the tables, and a plethora of rooms meant for mingling and relaxing. Additionally, there are a large number of smaller lockable rooms set up for sleeping or private encounters.
iii. escape rooms
One of the fun and more commercialized aspects of the season are the many Escape Rooms that pop up throughout the Quarantine. Residents are encouraged to test their survival skills by grouping up with friends or strangers to escape difficult and scary situations together by solving a series of puzzles.
Escape Rooms can be either physical, set up inside buildings with realistic decorations, or they can be Virtual Reality, where the players don VR masks and cooperate in a virtual world. While the former can be more challenging and realistic, the latter provides for higher stakes. Physical Escape Rooms are generally set up to avoid any kind of physical harm to participants, but the Virtual Reality Escape Rooms can simulate pain and injury quite handily, and therefore can put participants in more dangerous situations.
While players can make up an Escape Room that uses whatever theme they like, some prompts are below:
● Zombie Attack
● Torture Machines or Traps
● Cannibal Warlock
● Wrongly Convicted: Escape from Prison
● Escape from Sewer Monsters
● Mad Scientist Experiments
iv. tests of courage
As mentioned before, there are certain parts of the city where the ghost activity is much stronger than elsewhere. These are places where terrible things have happened - hospitals that treated the ill during the Pandemic, insane asylums or prisons where inmates were mistreated, homes where terrible murders happened, places exposed to dark magic, and other similar places. Every year during October, these places are shut down or vacated (unless they were already sitting empty) and entrance is allowed to people wishing to partake in a traditional Test of Courage - to enter these deeply haunted and dangerous places, and stay there as long as possible, sometimes even overnight.
In these particularly vulnerable and terrifying places, ghost activity is intense and almost constant. Characters will encounter strange sounds, smells, and visions; will encounter ghosts that are capable of throwing items or people; and most of all, they will experience powerful and realistic hallucinations due to the sheer lack of boundary between the worlds of the living and dead in these areas. Whether the hallucinations are manifestations of their own worst fears, the ghosts retelling their own tortured stories, or any other kind of terrifying vision, they feel very real. While characters will not be injured by the hallucinations, the sensations of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, or other sensations will be almost impossible to tell from the real thing until the hallucination subsides at daylight.
While the haunted locations are highly unlikely to kill characters, whether or not they experience serious injury due to physical actions they do while under the influence of a hallucination (eg. falling down a flight of stairs) or attacks from ghosts (eg. an angry ghost throws books at a character) is up to player discretion.
v. roommates or wildcard
Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the Feast of the Dying, feel free to write it up!
Credit: image i: Olivier Le Gall; image ii: John Watkiss; image iii: unknown (wallpapersfan); image iv: signed (pinterest); images v and vi: unknown (pinterest)
no subject
Nice to meet you Hiccup. [ She shook her head. ]
No, we don't have any dragons - except in books, anyway.
[ Well, technically there was the alligator that got turned into a dragon, but that... was a temporary thing. ]
It's kind of a shame too. If the other dragons were like yours, that'd be pretty cool.
no subject
Nothing is really like Toothless. [For a lot of reasons, more than just that he's Toothless and no dragon could ever be like him or replace him.] He might be the last of his kind.
no subject
How long have you known him? I mean - how long has he been with you? Like.. did you raise him from a... whatever dragons come out of?
no subject
About five years now. It's kind of a long story, but, nah, I didn't raise him from an egg or anything. I don't even know how old he is.
no subject
Well.. he seems to act young still, so maybe he's not -that- old? [ Of course she was basing that on assumptions and figuring an old dragon would be ...well.. BIGGER. And move slower, probably. ]
no subject
He snorts, watching Toothless at the edge of the water, splashing at the surface of it with his tail to jostle the fish.] You're probably right. I don't know how old dragons can get to be, but he's gotta be pretty young.
no subject
Yeah, I've seen some pretty weird things but this.... pretty much tops that. ANd I've been here almost half a year already. [ ... she pauses to let that sink in. Holy crap she's been here almost six months. Technically five, but... close enough. ]
I wonder how big he'll get. [ Maybe he'll still be small and streamlined when he's older. ]
no subject
Wait, half a year? That long?
no subject
... yeah. It.. kind of sucks, honestly, but I've made some pretty good friends here, so I can't really complain. Keeps me from being lonely.
no subject
That's something, I guess. I think I'd really miss home after that long. My dad, my friends... I don't mind it here, it's a nice break, but I don't want to stay forever.
no subject
[ Her smile dropped a little. ]
... yeah I mean... I miss home a lot too. I try to keep myself busy so I don't think about it that much but... it's pretty rough, sometimes. [ But he doesn't wanna hear about her gloom about missing home and family, heck, she just met him. So instead she quickly changes the subject, motioning to the drawing pad. ]
so uh.. you draw a lot?
no subject
He gives her a sympathetic smile.] You have to wait for the portal to open up to the right place, right? Maybe it'll happen soon. Keeping busy isn't a bad idea, though. [This is about when Toothless notices the humans being melancholy, and pads over the grass to join them, flopping down over Hiccup's legs and warbling at Marinette, big green eyes fixed on her. Hiccup rubs him between the ears with a quiet 'hey, bud'.]
Huh? Oh, yeah. My friend and I back home have been updating the Book of Dragons.
no subject
Sorry I don't really know much about Viking life - I mean.. besides what they say in history books, and a lot of that... isn't that flattering. [ Awkward.. she nods a little though, smiling absently. ]
Yeah, and it's really... well it would be frustrating if I didn't have things to do here. Some of the people I've met here already returned home, so...there's that.
[ O-oh, the dragon's coming over. She grins a little nervously, lifting a hand to wave at Toothless when he flops across Hiccup's legs. That warble was adorable. ]
Yeah? That must be a lot of work - what all goes into that? Just descriptions or...?
no subject
[Hiccup sets his book and charcoal aside before an overly-affectionate dragon can wrinkle the pages, and focuses his attention on Toothless, scratching lightly over his scales and drawing a content sound out of him.] There is that. It's possible, at least, even if it might take time.
Dragon research is the best work there is. We study behaviors, habits, diet, habitat, physical descriptions, defense mechanisms, just. Everything. It's been really useful.
no subject
So there are a lot of different Viking tribes where you're from? Ivar isn't from yours?
[ Also sidling away from the topic of home and going home and people she knew leaving -- yeh. ]
That's...a lot of information to catalogue. It'd probably take you guys years to finish documenting everything - but yeah, I can see it being really useful. Especially if you ever came cross a dragon that isn't as friendly as Toothless here.