Event: Breaking Down

[snowblindmods]

BREAKING DOWN

Earlier, you stole away the light, and that was good. Later, you spoke of fears. You let them out into the world: your own little lights. And today, on the morning of day 220, you can see them flickering and glowing inside your mouths. You might notice the message from @ADMIN on the tablets before everything else happens: Anomaly processing error. Attempting to adjust nanomachine output. Please stand by. After that, the fears begin to leak out. For some, it's a subtle sort of thing, something they might not notice alone. Their fears begin to creep into those around them, nudging at the psyches of friends and enemies and strangers. Those around them begin to experience the fear as if it were their own, seeing visions of the things their minds have suddenly learned to be afraid of. The closer someone is, the worse it gets--the fears of any traveling companions you may have can become paralyzing terrors that you may scarcely understand. You can feel the fears of anyone in the same zone of the map as you--they come and go, and the closer to you they are, the worse they get. Someone who is on the opposite end of the industrial zone may be barely a frightened whisper, but someone in the same house at you will infest your thoughts and create your nightmares. For others, the creeping fear is much more obvious. It crawls across your skin and into your bones, it burrows through your muscles and pounds at your skull. Physically, you change. You become something frightening, monstrous: you have become a manifestation of that which you fear, and the rot infests your mind, too. The light in your mouth has gone out. Someone has taken it and you want it back. Any light will do--the ones the others carry with them works just as well as the one you can no longer find. Sometimes, you're almost normal. Sometimes, you can resist the urge to swallow up that light. Sometimes, you can't do anything but attack. It's even possible to become one of these awful monsters and still be subjected to the fears of those around you--it doesn't happen to everyone, but some people are just especially unlucky. Of course, you can always avoid everyone else, right? There's plenty of space in town to get away. And sometimes that's true--sometimes, you're where you're supposed to be in Norfinbury. Other times, though--not all the time, but sometimes, when the world seems to swim and you feel unconsciousness pulling at you--you and many others are pulled back into that strange, impossible Escheresque world. While you're there, it's easy to reach even people across town. Characters who elect to become monsters manifesting their fears can transform in many ways, though they must remain within character size limits (a maximum of ten feet tall). These can be as abstract or specific as you want in regards to their fears: a character who is afraid of sharks can become a monstrous shark, but they could also become a more disjointed monster of water and cartilage that doesn't look like it should stay together. Monsters may have abilities that match the fear they represent, though they can't go beyond the power level one might expect from a low level video game character: in general, they should be intimidating to other characters, but not insurmountable obstacles. A character who represents fear of the dark could have the ability to make the area around them pitch black, for example, or our shark monster friend could have the ability to swim through the snow like it's water. Characters who are successfully attacked are knocked out upon physical contact with one of the monsters. The monsters themselves do not physically injure anyone: instead, they steal the light from the character and move on. Characters whose lights are stolen are no longer of interest to monster characters for the remainder of the event. Having your light stolen or stealing lights may have other effects in the future. You can make up a monster on your own or you can request that a moderator create your monster. If your monster character successfully steals someone's light, please reply here.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[snowblindmods]

[coyoteking]

If one of someone's primary fears is the death of another person, but they turned into a monster, would the monster want to protect that person, or steal their light?

[thewarningafter]

If a character with a pet turns into a monster, does the pet stay itself? Do they leave the pet behind when they go to Escherspace? Would the pet still recognize them for who they are?

Also, will other people still feel the fears of people who have turned into monsters?

[godsspeed]

How coherent/in control is it reasonable for a character to stay while in monster form? Would they still be able to communicate while "almost normal"? What about when the urge to attack is getting too strong to ignore?

[deus_ex_phs]

How does this affect character movements for the two IC days that this event is listed as lasting? Do we still submit movements based on their actions during this event? Or will they wake up on Day 222 and find that they haven't moved anywhere?

Re: QUESTIONS

[bookofnope]

Just making sure I got this right - it's possible to have characters quick-travel across the map during this event?

[0thingsonmymind]

here is my standard "what happens if we film it" question:
do the lights show up on camera at all? do the monster characters still appear as monsters? would a monster filming make any difference?
also how does the escherverse show up on film?

[jumpthegun]

For those who are transformed, will they be compelled to only attack people who have not transformed, or could they go after their 'fellows' as it were?

[0thingsonmymind]

what happens to a character's stuff while they're in the escherverse? does it go with them or stay behind and wait for them to come back?
what about stuff (particularly clothes) of monster characters who are no longer equipped to carry or wear it?

[bywolves]

Can you be a regular person one night, and a monster the next, or is it one or the other?

Re: QUESTIONS

[rattlingthestars]

If a character has their light stolen, how long are they out for?

Do they feel any different when they wake up? Are they aware that their light is gone?

[rubikscomplex]

At the end of the event, do characters just revert back to their human forms?

MONSTER CREATION

[snowblindmods]

If you would like us to create your monster, please reply to this comment with the following form:
<b>Character:</b> NAME (<user name="JOURNAL">) <b>Fear:</b> <b>Anything else:</b> Link your squick post if necessary, tell us things you'd like to focus on/things you want to avoid, whatever!

yes pls

[thewarningafter]

Character: Stephen Strange (thewarningafter)
Fear: A time loop in which he endlessly experiences one violent death after another at the hand of Dormammu. Also, car crashes.
Anything else: Stephen's other big fear is lacking a purpose in life, but that's probably harder to translate into monsterhood.

Pls

[absentconstellation]

Character: The Cat (absentconstellation)
Fear: Missing out on the future of the mortal realms, not being able to save everyone
Anything else: I would love an excuse to make him as big a cat as could possibly be allowed. Give or take some details.

sorry I'm late

[darkincrement]

Character: Vanitas (darkincrement)
Fear: Being weak and failing are the biggest two.
Anything else: n/a. Have fun <3

LIGHT THEFT

[snowblindmods]

If your character steals someone's light, let us know here! Include which character stole the light and which character had their light stolen.

[jumpthegun]

John Watson is a monster and will be stealing Amber Volakis's light.

[mrcreamsicles]

Davesprite will be stealing Steph's light!

[termineur]

The Cat will be stealing Sylar's light. Never mind! I messed this one up. D: Sylar will be a monster, so he doesn't have a light to get stolen.

[godsspeed]

Castiel will be stealing Dorian's light.

Residential Zone 2 roll call

[ecks]

If your character is in Res 2, please reply here with their location and a summary of their fears.

[ecks]

Ecks will be crossing the "border" between Res 1 and Res 2 with House and Castiel on the day of the event. Also then fleeing from Castiel.

Ecks is afraid of:
-Her friends dying
-Being told to kill people and not having the strength to refuse
-Failing to follow good rules
-Losing her free will
-Living forever with the burden of free will

While I'm theoretically open to Ecks's light being stolen, I'd strongly prefer to avoid doing anything that would cause a major delay in the quest to get the key card to the power plant, so we'd need to discuss how to go about it without creating that kind of problem.

Industrial Zone roll call

[thewarningafter]

If your character is in the Industrial Zone, please reply here with their location and a summary of their fears.

Re: Industrial Zone roll call

[rattlingthestars]

Jim is in the industrial zone. Summary of fears to follow when I'm less asleep.

Residential Zone 1 roll call

[0thingsonmymind]

what it says on the tin :3

[0thingsonmymind]

Alright, Brian's current fears are (as copied straight from plurk):
-his biggest fear right now is his whole purpose being meaningless
-And then his friends dying
-also brian is afraid of people fucking with his mind again, specifically the doctors trying to fix him or keep him in depressed and aimless sane state cause he's pretty sure that would just end badly. he's not sure HOW but...definitely badly and he's had enough mind fucking kthx

he's gonna be a monster (or possibly switching back and forth) but i've yet to decide what it'll look like

Ice Tunnels Role Call

[mrcreamsicles]

If your character is in the ice tunnels for the event, please respond here with their location and a summary of their fears.

[tidalflame]

Zidane is exploring the ice tunnels.

His biggest fears are losing his friends and the harder to define fear of never truly knowing himself and the monster he was originally supposed to be.