MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to MARCH's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: psychological horror that deals with gaslighting, losing one's grip on reality, being trapped and restrained, threat of drowning, threat of being eaten, sensory deprivation, bleach, blood, violence, haunting apparition of a child, injury by rusty implements

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

IMPORTANT INFO FOR PROSPECTIVE PLAYERS: This past month we were excited to announce that Deerington will be entering a new chapter in a few short months. This new chapter will involve a permanent setting shift that you can read about in more detail on this post. All prospective players are welcome to ask any questions they have on the linked post.

Prompt One
Prompt Two Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.

With all of the shifting in Deerington, it's not shocking when you start to feel like something in your home or workplace has begun to shift. You can't put your finger on what it is. Your furniture is exactly where it should be. Nothing seems moved. Maybe it's just Deerington paranoia acting up. God knows Sleepers have plenty to be paranoid about.

Then you start to notice little oddities. Scratch marks on the baseboards of your bedroom. If you have a bedframe with posts you might notice what looks like human bite marks have taken out chunks of the material. Only surely no one's gone around biting your bed? When you walk by windows, you start to think you see a trick of the eye and you could swear you see bars on the other side of your window. What? No. You don't have bars on your bedroom windows...

You're just seeing things. You're just seeing things. But maybe you're hearing things too. You can hear scuttling in the walls - maybe the rats from February? No, no...This is different. It sounded too big. More of a sliding shuffle than a scuttle. Maybe you look into your vents just to make sure but there's nothing to find. Nothing at all.

Then you start to look at your walls. Was that stain always there? Was it just part of the wallpaper or paint? Hmm...You don't remember there being a stain there.

You keep looking at the stain. Maybe it only takes a few days or a few hours but eventually, you start to see a face in the stain. If the stain's big enough you could swear it looks like...a person crawling. No. No! That's ...Just your imagination. Get a grip. But that stain may start to look like it has eyes, eyes looking right at you. Or the design in your wallpaper might start to look like a face is tucked among the floral patterns, eyes staring right at you.

You start to notice creeping figures out and around Deerington. While you're shopping for groceries you swear you can see a woman crawling from one aisle to the next, quick and scurrying. Were you the only one who saw that? Surely not? Maybe others have too. Then you see more women crawling across yards and you feel paralyzed with fear because they all look like that stain on your wall.

When you come back the stain has moved.

This drives many mad. You start to obsess over the stain. Maybe you even break apart your walls to see if there's really a person behind them. Maybe you start to peel the wallpaper off your walls or try to repaint everything to hide it. But the more you do, the more you sink down into paranoia. Eventually you start crawling around, trying to see if you can conjure up these creeping figures. You find yourself scratching at the baseboards and gnawing on furniture, becoming the very creeping fiend you feared.

Maybe you even eventually start to creep into people's homes, into their walls, to start the cycle of madness all over again. The only way to break free of this cycle is to catch one of the people in the walls, take their hand and pull. If you win this tug of war, you and the figure you chased in your madness into the walls will fall back into the three dimensional space of regular Deerington and you'll find the person you were chasing was just another sleeper trapped in the cycle like you. If you lose... you find yourself falling into an endless void and when you slow to a stop--

WASH AWAY THE MADNESS. PURGE THE SIN.

--You find yourself floating in midair in the middle of a sterile white room. You lost the tug of war with the other sleeper in the walls, or perhaps you were just walking down the street and got distracted by your reflection moving strangely in the storefront window and touching it pulled you through the glass and landed you here. Regardless of how you got here, now you are in what looks like a room that belongs in a hospital. Somehow you are also dressed in white pants and a t-shirt and there's a hospital bracelet on your wrist that has your name and blood type printed on it as well as a patient number. Beside you is another sleeper, either the one who you lost the tug of war to or a completely new one. You are able to speak to each other in this space and there is a slight echo as you do, enjoy it while it lasts.

After a moment of weightlessness, your bare feet touch the ground, which feels cold like concrete but is as white as the white subway tiled walls. There also appears to not be any light source, it just comes from everywhere and you may notice you're not casting a shadow. And neither is the albino german shepard that's appeared in the room with you. It looks friendly enough and you get the sense that it wants to guide you somewhere as it turns to walk through an open door that has suddenly appeared in the room.

Follow the dog and you'll find yourselves in an all white hallway, only there's a mirrored ceiling and the yellow stains of age on the peeling white wallpaper move in ways that make you uneasy. Almost immediately, you'll notice that there is no sound, not even from the dog or your own steps, not even your own heartbeat can be heard. But oddly, you can hear your own breathing, so loud in the otherwise utterly silent space that you speak to your companion just to have a different sound, but your voice is muted as well. Charades might be the only choice of communication between you two for some time. And as you continue on in this odd liminal space, out of your peripheral vision you'll notice your reflections on the ceiling above acting oddly, walking backwards or twirling in a childlike fashion while you are walking a straight line.

Spend long enough in this never ending silent white and bright hall with nothing but your breath to remind you that you're physically occupying this space and you start to feel on the edge of your sanity. After pulling your gaze from the disorienting reflections and stains on the wall, you look for the dog, but the dog is gone and in its place far down the hall is a small child dressed in white from head to toe with very little skin showing. It feels like it's been so long since you heard a voice that when the child speaks your ears hurt, blood trickles out. Wait, that can't be right... is it because of the silence from before or is the voice just supernaturally immense?

"GET OUT."

Is all the child says before water starts slowly rising up from the floor, but take a whiff and you catch the strong chemical scent of bleach. You and your companion must rush to find an exit or another creative solution to the problem at hand before you are drowned, and there will be no holding one's breath and swimming with your eyes open if you are submerged in bleach so you must act quickly. At the end of the long hall where the child stood there is a red light, but if you run towards it, it seems to only get further away.

If you can't go forward or back, then through the walls is the only solution. It is difficult though, at all the spots on the walls that are white, they are indestructible. It's the aged, yellow stains that are perpetually moving and shifting that are the weak points. Together, you must try to corner the shifting stains to stay still long enough for you to kick and punch your way through very thick walls. The stains seem to move away from anyone experiencing strong emotions and towards those who are calm and collected, and the key is to get them to stop moving entirely.

Once you burst through the thick wall and escape drowning by bleach, you'll either find yourself back in Deerington, or...

BREAK MY CHAINS AND I'LL BREAK YOURS.

You stumble into a mostly empty and dimly lit surgical room with blood on the floor and old dinge and rust on tiles and sinks. If you came here from the white hallway slowly filling with bleach, the pungent liquid will spill into the space as you enter, but turn around to look at the hole you and your companion made and you'll see it magically stitch itself up, like a wound in flesh speed healing rather than tile and drywall reorienting itself. However, it's possible to arrive here from Deerington without going through the white hall and that's by passing an empty lot in town. You could have sworn that lot had a house or a store the other day, but instead there's a dingy storage shed that draws you in with an intoxicating scent that wafts from a jagged hole in the side. No matter where you came here from, when you walk through, one or more other sleepers can walk through holes in the other walls at the same time and each hole will stitch up behind you.

It's too late to turn back once you're in and you barely have time to realize the danger you're clearly in when you are struck from behind and knocked unconscious. No matter what your body is made of or what abilities you have, you are knocked out cold... and when you awaken you are chained in the center of the room to a rusy old cair. The other sleeper or sleepers you found yourself with in this place are in the same situation facing you and on the floor in between you is a pile of old rusted keys of varying shapes and made of all different kinds of metals. The only thing these keys seem to have in common is the look of sharpness on every edge, like if you picked them up too hastily you could slice open your hand and get a tetanus infection from the rust.

The next thing you might notice is the heavy breathing of another person nearby, and when you look you see a large man in a soiled button down, jacket and khakis. He looks like a pro wrestler that went to a court hearing that then got blown up and he was the only survivor. But more striking than his size and attire is the fact that in place of a human head is just a black smoky blur with what looks like hundreds of eyes poking through the darkness, and when he turns, his face is nothing but a gaping circular maw with rows and rows of jagged teeth that spin like a food processor. The man doesn't speak, the only sound that seems to come from that horrifying void that is his head is haunting and hard to describe. It gazes at its prisoners with its infinite eyes for a moment, washes blood from its hands in one of the sinks along the wall and then lumbers over to the only exit while sharpening a butcher's knife.

It is rather clear what his intentions are. But why leave a pile of keys and not kill and eat you now? Who cares what game he's playing, what test you're undergoing? Time to figure out how to get free and obviously the keys are important. The chairs can be moved, tilted over and pushed, but they are heavy and you'll have to work together to get the right leverage to start picking up keys and testing them on each other's locks which are placed by your hands bound behind your backs. Your hands are so tightly bound that you have to use the keys blindly on the other person's lock, and don't forget that those keys are sharp and hard to hold too. One of you will get free first, but then the haunting sound and the thump of his feet can be heard in the next room. Do you leave your companion to the monster or risk it and try the other keys?

Whatever your choice, the door to get out is locked and unbreakable, but there's a vent high above it that you can get through alone with great difficulty, but will be much easier and faster with the help of your fellow sleeper. The moment you are inside and moving through the vents, the hulking man with the void head will let out an ear shattering screech and chase you from below, the butcher knife and other stabbing objects will slice through the bottom of the vent and you'll have to dodge and weave until you see the light at the end. Kick the exit vent open and you'll crawl out onto grass outside any building in town.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in-game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[sodder]

ichiro yamada | hypnosis mic | ota.

[hoodstar]

arrival.

( Ichiro finds himself feeling out of sorts, feeling weird and dissociative. Is that because of the place he's in now? Is there something else wrong, did he hit his head or something ... ?

It seems like he's caught in reverie more and more often the first day he's there. More than one person bumps into him ... )

break my chains and i'll break yours.

( This can't be real, this can't be real, THIS CAN'T BE REAL—

It repeats in his head like a scream, crescendo winding up as the man below stabs upwards into the vent. He scrambles as fast as he can, breath coming quick and panicked. )

Y-you good back there?! I see an end—

( Just as he reaches the end, light shining through like a sweet promise, the knife comes up against his forearm from below. He yelps in pain, recoils, but the terror hasn't left him. No, now he uses it to kick clean through the exit vent and crawl out, reaching back for the other behind him when he's free. )

break my chains.

[startedtheflamewar]

Easy—

[ It had started as a whispered (attempted) comfort. Surely the worst of this shit is probably behind them. Once they could get onto even ground, and once they were free, more of a plan could be formulated. Cash isn't entirely sure how to deal with a creature like the one that had caught them, but he's also willing to put a lot of distance between them if need be. He's ready to run. Being chained up like that had been a nightmare, a remembrance of the worst times in his life.

And then that fucking knife comes up and Cash jerks back on impulse, startled. The guy in front of him — a stranger, but he'd helped him free of his bonds, so points in his favor — kicks out the vent and starts crawling through. The knife comes back again, this time through the metal and gashing the side of one of his legs. Cash just grimaces, his pain tolerance coming through for him. As it usually does. ]

Aw f...

[ He can practically feel the knife reeling back again below him. And then the hand appears in the vent and Cash grabs it, surging forward readily. ]

Mabel Pines | Gravity Falls | OTA

[sparklehorror]

The Walls Have A Lot Going On Today Apparently

Since arriving in Deerington, Dipper and the Grunkles have given her all sorts of warnings about the town's weirdnesses, and truthfully Mabel's first inclination was to shrug and go about her business. After all, from her perspective, she survived a literal apocalypse a matter of days ago, and it's not as though that wasn't dangerous. She knows now how Dipper and Wendy got the injuries they arrived in her prison with. She can imagine what turning to stone must have felt like, having been turned to wood in Pacifica's mansion that one time. And, though she tries not to think about it, she remembers feeling her brother writhing against her back as they both struggled to get out of Bill's hand while he was debating which one of them to kill -- remembers the thrill of horror when her shooting star appeared in his eye.

But none of that stands out to her as much as the total desolation when she realized Stan was there but he wasn't there, and now, the three of them carry an incredible heaviness that none of them are eager to elaborate on, which creeps Mabel out substantially more than anything so mundane as moving stains on the walls. This place has rattled them all hard, Dipper with his brains and Ford with his laser focus on fixing it when he causes apocalypses and Stan with the biggest heart in the whole world (perhaps even bigger than Mabel's), all of them are quiet and nervous in ways they weren't before and that means more to her than any other warning they could possibly bother to put into words.

So, although she is absolutely following the crawling woman she spotted a bit ago because you don't just not follow strange things that may or may not live in your wallpaper, Mabel has the sense to pause and look around for someone to come with her when the woman disappears into the grocery store. It's dangerous to go alone! Take whoever you find next to you on the street, provided that they are not too creepy.

"Hey! You're seeing this too, right?" The situation is concerning, but Mabel smiles anyway as she sucks her hands up into the sleeves of her sweater. "The people crawling around, like one of those creepy ladies that used to come out of movie players in the 90's? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Mabel has never seen this movie but she makes a passable grudge noise all the same, flailing her sweater sleeves around to emphasize her point. She would like to get to the bottom of this, because she is pretty sure Dipper is about thirty seconds away from tearing all the wallpaper down with his bare hands, which means Ford is probably twenty-five seconds from burning the entire house down. Ford is much more efficient at these things and tends to have better tools at his disposal.


I'll Break Yours

Spoilers: The intoxicating scent that drew Mabel into the dubious hole in the parking lot shed was that of mint chocolate chip ice cream with gummy worms and sprinkles. Look, we all have our vices.

Still, she's taking the situation well, all things considered. She is absolutely terrified, yes, but it is completely 100% rational to be scared of horrible creepy things with too many teeth that want to eat you, so as long as the man isn't actually in the room with them the fear isn't getting in Mabel's way much. A determined expression on her face, she wiggles and contorts on her chair, twisting this way and that as best she can until --

Clunk.

"There we go!" she declares triumphantly. "Grappling hook."

Indeed, apparently Mabel somehow carries a grappling hook around in her sweater, and said grappling hook has now fallen out onto the floor. What Mabel thinks anyone is going to do with it now is anybody's guess, but look! We do in fact have a grappling hook. She sits beaming in her chair, resting a moment in the hopes that someone smarter than she is will come up with their next move.


[OOC: Pretending she's been in town for a few days. If you have close CR with the cast, feel free to pretend they've already met!]

[Closed]

[ghostharasser]

It’s been about a week and a half since he revived, and it finally feels like he’s well enough to function like a human being again. It’s the first day in a long time he’s been able to get out of bed without getting lightheaded, or without choking his lungs out. He still doesn’t feel great but its livable. It’s just an annoying cold, which he can live with.

So that is why Dipper was getting ready for school for the first time in a while. School was ...honestly kind of a joke at this point, but Dipper really needed to get out of the house and school was the easiest excuse. It was a routine he could settle back into, and he needed something like that badly after spending almost half the month in bed.

“-It’s kind of like that weird bootleg game we found at that yard sale, you know? The towns people are just glitching out, clipping through walls and other really weird stuff. I guess no one’s checking homework now,” Dipper says easily into the walkie talkie in his hand while he checks his backpack for his things. This was another important routine and it was one he’d had a harder time keeping up when he could barely talk without coughing.

“That’s fine, I really want to see my friends and being trapped in bed with the flu has been the worst. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”

Bobo Del Rey | Wynonna Earp

[bobodelrey]

The Walls Have Ears and Eyes.

[This isn't Purgatory. This isn't anywhere he finds especially familiar at all, as a matter of fact. More than that, he is still alive, somehow, and not back burning in Hell. You would think all of this knowledge would be more than enough to soothe his nerves.

You would think.

But then he starts noticing tiny little things in his new home shifting around where he knows for certain he didn't put them, then the posts of his bed seem to have bites taken out of them. Unless he's doing something rather interesting in his sleep or this place has some very interesting rodents, he's not sure what's going on. Fingers brush the marks as he tilts his head to the side.]

Interesting...

[It's when he sees that odd stain on his wall that Bobo decides he's in need of fresh air, too unnerved to linger around and gaze into it much longer. A walk around Deerington will clear his head, help him be better acquainted with his curious circumstances.

He's just about to grab something off a shelf in a shop when he's rather sure he saw someone crawl by. It's enough to have him pausing mid-gesture, fingers wrapped loosely around the product as he leans back to try to get a better look.]

Did you just see that?

[He asks the person closest to him, although his eyes barely break away from where he's certain the skittering happened.]

Wash Away the Madness, Purge the Sin

[He vaguely remembers his reflection in a window, moving the opposite direction. He remembers reaching out... and now he's in a hospital room apparently. Clad in white, a bracelet strapped to his wrist. Bobo spends time inspecting it with curiosity, a sinking feeling in the pit of his gut. Ending up a lab rat isn't a comforting thought, not after the close call back home, not in an entirely strange place after the welcome he's had.]

Are you awake?

[He starts when he notices he's hardly alone in this room. He's not sure if it bodes well or not, in truth.]

Can you tell me what sort of bullshit is happening to us?

Wildcard

[If there's anything else you'd like to do, please hit me up or drop a prompt here! Bobo is just post his first death!]

Wash Away the Madness

[pathofthewrong]

[Great, it's just like this place to seduce you into a creepy sterile hospital room and dress you up to match. Though the floor meeting her feet isn't sudden, she makes an 'oof' sound and stumbles a bit anyway. Going from total weightlessness to suddenly having gravity steady you is just a really weird and disorienting feeling.

She's not one to let guys who look like Bobo go unnoticed or unwatched, either. In other circumstances, she'd be pulling out her switchblade to hold in her hand as a precaution, but it's not on her anymore. She eyes him distrustfully, body language ready to react to any sudden move towards her.]

Oh you know, just the regular old nightmare fuel this town likes to dump us right in the middle of.

connor / detroit: press x to sadness

[twinkdotexe]

⭕ walled in

[RK800 model serial number #313 248 317 - 52 deviated from his (its) program for the first time about 9 hours and 57 minutes ago. he (it) deviated again - deviation within a deviation, connor has been a trailblazer for a lot of things including but not limited to betrayal and high treason - to stop cyberlife taking over his programming and assassinating markus during his victory speech 4 hours and 23 minutes ago.

the humans of deerington have been wasting his time for 47 minutes.

connor is, tragically, is used to his time being wasted on various human idiocracies, detective reed. he's also used to violence, thanks to the solid petabyte of assassination protocols cyberlife installed into him, but he doesn't need to look into his social relations program to know that mentioning this would make the people he's questioning uncomfortable. it's also generally not something the general public is meant to know. he was meant to be a friendly detective robot! nothing else. inspector gadget over here!

he'd immediately connected to the fluid network to download and scan everything on it and-- some guy from philadelphia eating concrete? great. super helpful. also, another RK800, markus and north had been present two years ago? connor immediately sets up a continuously open and encrypted channel for them to pick up, should they be around, then tries not to be slightly offended when it remains empty and static.]

Hello, [connor says, pushing himself off the wall he'd been leaning on and running his dexterity program with his coin, executing his best friendly tone. he even pitches it up slightly to seem even more non-threatening. all (slightly invasive) scans he's been running on everyone around him along with the information garnered from the network has led to two definitive groups: people with dead eyes who walk into walls and townspeople.

this one is not a townspeople.] Do you know where the local taxi service is based?

[his GPS is on the fritz, apparently. it's a pain. call him old-fashioned, but connor prefers to have a steady stream of the exact information he wants downloaded into his head at all times.]

⭕ something something deviation metaphor

[connor can dislike things now. he's allowed to do that. he decides he dislikes being knocked out and moved around. this is the third time in as many days. it's starting to get excessive.

he's not scared by the strange man and his weird sounds, so connor shifts as close to the pile of keys as he can and starts to cross-reference each one with the lock around his ankle. casually, to the man as he leaves:] Polyethylene is not nutritious and will damage your digestive system. Kidnapping and threats of violence are illegal.

[but the guy ignores him and his attempts to engage and leaves and connor isn't strong enough to drag his own chair to whoever's in the room with him and check out what key they need. he also wonders, vaguely, if he's still a cop. was he ever a cop or just a glorified speedometer? connor files this away for later consideration.

he sticks a leg out and pushes some of the pile aside to get a better look at them.]

I don't like this town. [connor sounds so put out when he says that to whoever is stuck with him. even if he can't be eaten, he's not exactly thrilled about the prospect of being murdered and cut to pieces in a dank basement, y'know?]

[siriusly]

Whoa! Uh-!

[wow hey okay, a lucid person! the odds are low, considering population density and whatever. also, it's late? Manabu gets the feeling the veterans of this place are smarter than he is, which is why he doesn't see a lot of folks out when it starts to get dark.

could be that, could be...y'know. he just doesn't know all the cool places lucid people like to be.

anyway.

this guy.

Manabu stops what he was doing and looks him up and down, giving extra consideration to the blinking donut-ring on his head.]

...Um. I don't think there is one. Sorry... I...don't think it'd be safe, either. Considering... [his eyes wince as a local walks into a lamp post, almost as if it meant to punctuate the point like that.]

You just got here, I guess?

Diluc Ragnvindr | Genshin Impact | Ota

[searingwing]

Madness in the walls.

[A boot scrapes on the edge of an open doorway as its owner pauses and whirls around. His long mane of red hair sways as he places one hand on a massive claymore strapped to his back. The red and black metal catches the light of a nearby street lamp showing a sharp edge peeking out over his shoulder.

Diluc swallows carefully to not make a noise. Since he arrived he has been on edge and out of sorts. The tech here is more than he has ever seen before. The city itself so foreign and lacking in the freedoms he has defended since he became a knight and left their service.

He leans forward slowly, red eyes fixed on a stain on the wall. His hand lets go of the hilt of his sword and drops to his side. Then something moves behind him. He pivots fast and comes face to face with you. The air feels subtly warmer than it should and his eyes are wide but his face is unreadable.

Then his eyes narrow and he relaxes a little, hand gripping the doorway falling back to his side.] Sorry, I’m having a problem. You might be able to solve it. Did you see anything move out of the corner of your eye?

Or when you were turning around?

Wash it all away

[He shouldn’t have let his own paranoia get that far. He is normally very good at controlling even the smallest twitch but he had let go and in the end, become that which he hunted.

He is a strong man that wields claymores one handed, anyone with lesser strength could lose to him while he is one with the walls. However one ended up by his side in the strange space, Diluc stares at his bracelet and checks his waist. He closes his eyes as his hand closes on empty air. Where? But he remembers taking it off before the madness took him.] Thanks for freeing me.

I... [He starts to say something then shakes his head. He could make excuses or just own what happened. He says politely,] Sorry.

Lets find a way back. I’ll do everything in my power to get us out.

Break my chains and I’ll see you out.

[The hole in the hallway leads into a room that smells like blood and death. He can tell it is some sort of medical room but the lighting in too dim to guess more than that. He stumbles in and the sharp, pungent scent of bleach fills the air and the bleach spills inside.

It trickles at his feet as he moves back but the hole ripples and pulls together. It shifts and mends, as if sewn shut. He stares at it with his heart hammering in his chest and alarm blazing inside him. What in the name of the Seven?

Diluc lets go of the other person as if burned and turns to face the room. Without a weapon he feels a little naked but that stop him. He promised to see the person - roped into this mess by his own lapse - safely out. His own breathing sounds so loud as he takes a second to just breath. Something hits him from behind, hard and fast. Everything goes black.

He wakes up with a start but the chains locking him to the chair hold him tight. His chair rattles a little bit. He glances around and his eyes fall on his captor. He goes utterly still. There is no face only a smoky blur of void he knows well. Anything Abyss related uses the darkness. But there are too many eyes and teeth in that face.]

You have me, what do you want? [His voice comes out harsher than he wanted it too. And the bulky looking void man only washes his hands and walks out. Diluc glances down at himself. The chains wind around his chain and limit his movement. His legs can move a bit more but he has to play it right. He lifts his head and looks around and his eyes catch sight of another chair. He pitches his voice low.] Hey, are you still alive? Wiggle your chair if you’re still breathing.

Wildcard
[Got another idea or want a custom starter/prompt? Pm this account and we can plot it out.]

break my chains :o

[monoceroscaeli]

[Blood stains the back of Childe's head, strapped to the chair as his head droops. He's been hit hard before, but not quite like this. His focus wavers, as he tries to pick his head up. The difficulty weighs on him, but he's determined not to die here. He manages to lift his head enough to look Diluc in the face, a small smile on his lips despite the danger.]

Got you too, huh? [The tone of his voice is raspy, and he coughs, trying to keep himself from passing out.] What cheap tactics, knocking us out...it will be far too satisfying to remedy this disgrace when I crush that thing beneath my heel...

Thomasin | The VVitch

[livingdeliciously]

i. the walls have ears

[The cabin did not have wallpaper -- neither, true, did her home in the village. Thomasin can remember that, if she focuses hard enough. She can remember the sounds of other families nearby, the clucking of chickens and rattle of wagon wheels over the ruts in the road. She can remember seeing the faces of people other than her family. But she cannot remember wallpaper.

Perhaps it's a sin, to have wallpaper. Vanity, maybe. Vanity is an especially egregious and easily fallen-into sin, according to her mother.

(no, no, don't think about her, don't do it, don't think of her)

Still, at first Thomasin likes the look of it -- bright, yellow, like sunshine filtering through the clouds and filling up her room. She's almost afraid to touch it, during the first couple days, but eventually she gets accustomed to the strange pattern of it, tracing it with a fingertip during the long, sleepless nights, memorizing the design. So of course she realizes immediately when that design...changes.

It must be her sleep-addled brain. That's what Thomasin tells herself when she leaves the house, a scrap of the wallpaper held in one hand, leaving smudges of yellow on her pale skin. She's twitching at every sound, looking over her shoulder, reaching convulsively to tuck strands of her hair back under her cap, to straighten her clothes. She keeps thinking she sees something, sees the shape in her wallpaper.

It's a woman. It's a woman with long, lank hair and a howling, accusing mouth. Thomasin knows that mouth, that face.

If someone tries to speak to her, maybe to mention the smudges on her face or hands, she'll flinch back, eyes wide and haunted and glassy. Then she'll bob her head, murmuring a soft apology --] Begging your pardon, I meant thee no offense.

ii. break my chains

[Perhaps this is the punishment that's been coming. Signing her name in that book -- guided hand or nay -- had not banished Thomasin's belief in the all-encompassing, wrathful, cruel god she had grown up with. If anything, it had solidified it, for if she could pledge herself to the Devil, that meant that God had to be real, right?

Regardless, as soon as she opens her eyes, she closes them again, trying to strain against the chains wrapped around her shivering, slight form. It's like trying to push over a tree bare-handed, or escape the grip of the coldest winter. She's never seen such strong chains before, and imagines they must also be the work of the Dark One.

Keeping her gaze away from the figure sharpening his knife (an avatar of the Devil, surely, one of his servants upon the earth), Thomasin turns her strange, bright eyes onto the other who is trapped as she is.]

Please...please, do not leave me here...

iii. network: thomasin

[Written totally without context, because the only words she knows how to spell are Bible verses, of course:]

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

II

[51stcenturyjack]

[In a chair opposite her sits a tall, dark haired man, trying to budge the chair, in a bid to scrape it toward the keys and away from the weird figure.]

Ugh. Man, this chair is heavy. Least it ain't bolted down, so small mercies and all that.

[He looks to Thomasin, his pale eyes warm, despite the fear in them, even giving her a friendly smile.]

Yah new here? Ain't see yah around these parts before.

Alec Lightwood | Shadowhunters

[shadowhuntings]

I. THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.

Time in Deerington seemed inconsequential for the hunter of shadows, had it been one, two, four days since he arrived? Life moved without purpose or direction ever since Alec was pulled from his world into this one. Without family, his parabatai, or the institute what was the point? Feeling beyond melancholy, the young shadowhunter sat in a chair in his place of living when he first caught sight of it. A blur in his wall. A blur he chalked it up to the lights playing tricks on him, and his desire for action beyond the day to day monotony.

However, the blurs became a pattern, became a problem. They began to stop looking like blurs, but like shapes of people, or were they demons moving through and along his walls. Being who he was, one night after having enough, Alec got out his bow and began to shoot arrows at the dark shadows (it was his job after all), blowing holes in the walls of his new place-- a flash of light, then a bang, and a new hole would appear.

"Get back here, you son of an angel." He swore, frustrated that they'd always crawl away or melt into the wall at the last moment.

Running outside his living space, he banged on the door of the tenant next door, and ran inside when he answered, seeing a shadow melt through the wall immediately the second he's inside.

"See that? Stop it. Someone stop it." He begged. Racing forward, Alec grabs for it, and looks back at the other person to see if there's any help or recognition incoming.

II. WASH AWAY THE MADNESS. PURGE THE SIN.

Floating. Floating. Alec is dressed in all white and floating. He must be dreaming, and yet no matter how hard he pinches himself, he feels it every time. The shadowhunter could have sworn that he was somewhere else a moment ago-- was he at his neighbors, or across town gazing down into a puddle of water. Now, somehow he's drifting down to the ground in a room that's so white it hurts his eyes. It's more terrifying than facing the shadow, because he was born to chase shadows. Not light.

Almost immediately upon touching the ground he notices not only that he's not alone, but that he has no shadow. What's he to do in a world without shadows. As part angel, one would think that he would fit into the light, but it feels foreign and fake. Everything is surreal, and Alec can't help but question the base of his sanity as a dog appears before him. He glances at his partner in weirdness, and then back at the dog.

"I think that it wants us to follow it..."

III. Wildcard

[If there's anything else you'd like to do, please feel free to give it a whirl. I'm more than happy to do Break My Chains, if someone desires it. Feel free to PM me at this journal if you desire anything. ]

II

[hedon]

Since his initial arrival one year ago Magnus had seen four times as much Alec as he thought he'd ever had the opportunity to see. Having just kissed him in front of the entirety of the clave, he was sure that the modus operandi would be one step forward two steps back. The way it always was. It never stuck, and every time he got close - again, Deerington and its grubby claws snatched him right back to reality. It doesn't surprise him, spells of sleep were child's play and Alec was so much more than just a run-of-the-mill shadowhunter. He had power behind him that not even he himself understood yet, but he wanted to. Needed to. The constant ache of curiosity and something more drove him to come back every single time even though it was a continued source of pain. So, when he finds himself staring at the back of Alec's head and those familiar shoulders it feels like a blow to the chest.

"Well, I feel like there are a few cautionary tales about following animals into the unknown but after you." As always, Magnus ignored his better judgment to keep an eye on the wayward son he'd started to feel something for. Never quite enough, never around for long enough for him to tell him how he felt but when the opportunity knocks he answers it.

kieren walker | in the flesh

[burying]

✞ THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.
cw: ptsd-related hallucinations/flashbacks; mention of murder; mild-panic attack symptoms

[ Maybe if he pretends to buy groceries, there'll be less suspicion drawn to him. They'll just think he's normal, just like everyone else. They won't think he's... different, he's not like them. If they find out, they'll... he doesn't know. Kieren isn't sure how they're going to react to something like him. He knows this isn't Roarton, a place where there isn't much safety — but there's no safety guaranteed here either. There isn't anyone like him here; that makes it automatically dangerous.

But there's an uncomfortable familiarity with the shop, it reminds him much of the one in Roarton. Bad things happened there, horrific things— he'd hurt her, killed her in a place like this. And he walks around with an empty grocery basket and a lump in his throat, barely looking at anything on the shelves. His heart might not beat with the frantic panic, but he feels it — or remembers how it feels.

And then comes the skittering, he moves down the aisle slowly, trembling. Flashbacks in his mind's eye throw him to flickering lights, shapes in the dim, the buzz of power failing. It's happening again. Please, no. A form of a woman crawling, quick — too quick. Lisa—? ]

Stop it—! [ It comes out as a pitiful cry, strained between gritted teeth. He starts backing up, stumbling a little. ] Just stop it, leave me alone.

✞ BREAK MY CHAINS AND I'LL BREAK YOURS.

[ It's by some miracle the cover-up mousse has stayed intact. On his face, anyway. His hands are another story, but he hasn't noticed that yet — blotches of grey-white decay amongst the flesh-pink, half washed from the bleach-water. Kieren wakes up chained in his chair, unable to move much, his stomach dropping in realisation: why's he tied up? He doesn't feel pain. No jarring headache from being struck, but he lifts his head frowning, hunching a little — what the hell?

He turns to looks, seeing the man watching them, sharpening his knife. He tenses against the chains, trying to fight against them, but he's locked up tight. He lets out a soft little whine, exasperated. He's Done with this: ]

Aw, what now—?! [ Oh, fuck. Fuck this. He knows fine well what he's planning and Kieren doesn't want to stick around and find out. He moves his attention to what's around him, the keys, the prone figure in the chair across from him. Once the man leaves, he's trying to scoot his chair over to them, the soft scrapes of the legs on the floor echoing slightly. Shitting hell, he needs to be careful. ]

Hey, oi—! Wake up—! [ He hisses through his teeth quickly. ] Can you hear me? Please wake up.

✞ NETWORK.

text | un: k.walker

Hi. Everyone.
So, just out of curiosity
If someone needed really specific medication for something
How would they go about getting it?

break my chains and i'll break yours

[akanotjewel]

[Jessica comes to with a soft moan, her head throbbing from the blow she took. The chains binding her arms behind her back are heavy-duty, as if she poses an actual threat, and when she tests them she winces. Her eyes flick to Kieren, then to the keys, then to the man, now leaving, and a pit yawns open in the bottom of her stomach. Usually she'd just yank the chains apart, grab the guy and leave, but whoever kidnapped the two of them knew exactly how strong she is.

Jesus fucking Christ.]

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. [Another tug, and a hissed curse. Like she needed more shit on her plate.] Shit.

[Her feet are free, at least, and although the chairs are much heavier than she's used to she can at least scrape it closer to the guy with far more ease than he does.]

Any idea what's going on?

Chas Chandler | Constantine

[kindofimmortal]

i. break my chains and i'll break yours

The space feels weirdly familiar. Not because he's experienced it, but because he's been told about it. Jacob Shaw's consciousness. John and Ritchie chatting about the endless possibilities there; John looking wary, Ritchie looking thrilled.

But he doesn't have time for that right now.

Right now, he's chained to someone, there's a pile of keys to go through, a menacing figure in the corner, and none of his usual tricks up his sleeve. "Listen," he says, his voice surprisingly low and calm. "We have to work together on this. First thing's first: we need those keys."


ii. arrival

He's not in the millhouse. He's not in his apartment, or in the spare room at Renee's. Instead he's in a house... somewhere. Having had one of the strangest dreams in recent memory. And he's had a lot of strange dreams, given what he does on a semi-regular basis.

He doesn't think, he just moves. Out onto the street, looking left and right. "John?" he calls out, voice booming down the sidewalk. "John Constantine. Has anyone seen a John Constantine?"


iii. wildcard
[hit me up with another of the prompts, or throw something at me!]

[stayinthevision]

Zed's making her way down the street, with her sketchbook open and her pencil poised and at the ready, even as she's walking. There's a lot of things around the town that catch her eye, and some things that seem significant, so she doesn't want to miss anything.

She pauses for a moment, because she thinks she hears a familiar voice, and what's more, that voice is calling for someone specific.

Closing her sketchbook, she makes her approach. "Chas? When did you get here?" Part of her thinks she must be imagining him, or dreaming him up, which feels fitting, considering the nature of this place, but he certainly looks real.

Agent Washington | Red Vs Blue

[schrodingerscockroach]

The Walls
[Seeing things was not new. One doesn't suffer multiple severe to outright debilitating brain traumas and a bad habit of not sleeping without having some experience with hallucinations. Unfortunately, sleep was hard in a new place, and he just did not trust anyone enough to go poking at his head, so he made the great choice to just try and ignore it. He's done it before for more invasive visions, he can do it for creeping dread.]

[Except then he feels the bitemarks. The scratches. Things he knows wasn't there when he last tried to sleep, last left the house, last left the room. Hallucinations were one thing. He didn't feel things that weren't real.]

[In a way, it's a relief. He can deal with crazy, absolutely demented possible threat. It grinds on his nerves less then the fear that he's possibly going insane. Again.]

[His solution is probably a little crazy anyway, but it's certainly less crazy then the strange urges he gets, gnawing at the back of his head. The belief the creature is in other homes, to sneak in-]

[No, instead he waits until dark, when he'll sometimes catch the scurrying outside....and then carries a chunk of his wall outside. He sits down at a tree, his back to the wood, the wall chunk to the side, and he waits.]

[If the face wants to peep, then he's going to give them little place to have a stain.]

Wash Away The Madness
[Waking up, floating in a sterile room, is a terrible thing for his frayed nerves. For a few moments, there is the very real terror that maybe he never left. Maybe he was still Article 12, he was still committed, that everything he's experienced was a psychotic episode just to deal-]

[He had started to hyperventilate, the stress of too much familiar, but not wearing on him, until he feels the ground under his feet and sees-]

[He's not alone.]

[He was always alone when he was Article 12, save for staff. Never another patient. This is just another fucked up situation. He's fine. He's Fine.]

[He gets his breathing under control.]

Hey. Are you okay?

Break My Chains
[Wash is pretty sure it says something that this is the situation where he's gone from extremely stressed, worried for his own sanity, to extremely unimpressed and annoyed.]

I'm really getting sick and tired of getting coldcocked and tied to a chair. You do get points for being one of the freakier creatures I've seen though. [His voice is very dry and flat, just raising a pointed eyebrow at the butcher's knife, before rolling his eyes.] You'll want to make that extra sharp! You aren't getting through my bones otherwise! [He watches the butcher creature leave, he turns to the other.]

Come on. Unless you got something like a hairpin, we need to get through the keys. [He's still annoyed, but he's determined and he's already moving his chair over.]

Wash away the madness

[searingwing]

[The man to the left of him frowns and glances around them. The room is made of plain white walls.] About as alright as we can be.

[Diluc lifts his arm up. The hospital bracelet stands out against his pale skin marred by numerous scars.] And I can't tell you how we got here.

[He turns in a small circle. The floor is solid and they're both wearing clothes he's unfamiliar with. He reaches towards his side and his frown grows more pronounced.] But they made sure we couldn't defend ourselves.

salem | rwby | ota

[easilyswayed]

i. the walls have ears. and eyes.

[ A few days ago, Salem awoke in a three-story home in Flatwoods Point. The place is falling apart — parts of the floors are rotting, the plumbing is inconsistent at best, and the place is horribly drafty. It’s dark. Inhospitable. Salem finds that she actually doesn’t mind it. It reminds her of an old place. A quiet, long-dead cabin.

She pays no mind to the bite marks, at first. Honestly, they fit in with the rest of the house. But then, one afternoon, Salem looks out her living room window and sees bars. She dashes to the kitchen, and that window looks like it’s been entirely boarded up.

She’s been sealed inside. Salem knows it. She can feel it, that ancient, familiar dread that has been her constant companion for millennia. She will not be in a prison. She cannot be.

Salem screams, and every window in the place shatters. The door blows off its hinges. Standing at the entryway, trembling, is a woman with too-pale skin and eyes that look horribly inhuman and terribly old.

If you happen to be nearby, Salem will raise a long, pallid finger and point. ]

You. Did you do this?


ii. break my chains and i’ll break yours.

[ Salem awakens in chains.

At first, all she can do is laugh in a cold, cruel way that does not remotely resemble mirth. Her chains are not usually so literal.

The hulking man in the corner pays Salem no mind. She is not afraid of him. Salem has created worse monsters. Besides, she needs to focus on getting free.

Salem struggles against her chains, but they are too tight to break apart by force. The keys, then. Salem knows that the rusted metal cannot actually harm her, but there’s also not much point in getting her hands dirty. Not when there’s another prisoner to do that work.

Salem is old, and she is patient. She waits for you to wake up. And as soon as you do, she looks you straight in the eye, and gestures with her shoulders towards the keys. ]

Bring those here. I’ve waited long enough.

[ That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order. ]


iii. wildcard.

( ooc: throw something at me! also: know that salem is VERY evil and comes with a whole bunch of content warnings, including suicide and abuse. i won’t be mentioning those things in these tom threads unless we’ve discussed them beforehand, but please check out my opt-out just in case! feel free to send me a pm with questions/plotting too. )

ii

[clickclickbloom]

[Ruby starts to stir and there's a whirling sound as her mechanical eye activates and the shutters slowly opening up, a faint red light emanating from the glass. At the time time her silver eye flutters open as she groans in confusion. She tugs at the chains holding her to the chair but they don't budge. She also couldn't feel her scythe at her back.

This was all looking incredibly lame.

She shakes her head and looks ahead of her and she feels her heart sink down into the pit of her stomach. She couldn't believe her eyes, both real and artificial. Salem appearing here in Deerington had always been a real threat but Ruby had really hoped it wouldn't come to pass.

But there she was... And she was just as trapped as Ruby was. That was weird in it's own way. And then she speaks to her, and that just sends a shiver down her spine.

It would be one thing to act defiant and refuse but... It means she'd likely just be wasting her own life while Salem would live through whatever the town threw at her.]

I-

You could at least say please.

[Look. She's got a whole lot of nothing right now.]

Parker | Leverage

[onlyparker]

i. wash away the madness

Is she... floating? For a second it's pretty cool, but then Parker notices that it's not dream-like enough to be a dream. And you weren't supposed to know you were dreaming if it was a dream, so just thinking that it was a dream negated the fact it was a dream and - it would be cool if it weren't so freaky.

It doesn't last for long, thankfully, and once her feet are on the ground and she can turn to see the other person in the room with her. "Hey-"

ii. break my chains

Parker comes to with a faint throb on the back of her head. Someone had knocked her out, she remembers, and when she tries to move her hands they're bound together. She opens her eyes, jerking against the restraints - they're unexpected, and unanticipated things in a dank room with bound hands usually meant they were well past the E plan.

That's okay. Whoever it is even left a pile of keys for her use, so she's sure she'll be out of here in no time. If she'll be going solo or not... well, that depends who exactly it is with her.

ii. Yesssssssssssss

[likeknives]

Ugh.

Eliot scowls, blinking through the bleariness. What just...happened? He was in town and there was that weird storage shed and suddenly he's here. It feels like someone had knocked him cold out and now...

...and now he's trapped.

Except.

There's someone here with him? He squints, realizing that it's--

"Parker?! S'that you?!"

Kiara | The Lion King 2 | ota

[halfaprincess]

[Arrival]

[She fell asleep after spending a night with Kovu, and when she awoke, she was here again. It's been a few years - she remembers this place from when she was a child. But she's a full grown lioness now... what's she doing back here?

She ventures outside, not realizing how a lioness walking around town might be a little alarming. The streets and general layout seems about the same, but the place... looks like it's falling apart. She looks for the nearest person, hoping to find a familiar face.]

Hey... do you know what happened here?

[Walls]

[Kiara's had about enough with these figures in the walls. She's clawed up rooms, dug in corners, some of those rooms weren't even her home. She sees the figures through windows and invites herself in, so apologies if you come home and see a giant lioness tearing your wall apart.

Eventually, she'll reach out and hook her claws into something solid. Hopefully not your skin.]

Okay. That's enough. Get out!

[Chains]

[When Kiara escapes the room filling with bleach, this situation isn't any better. She's upright on top of a chair, but thoroughly chained to it. Chains wrapped around all of her legs, up her waist, and around her neck. No matter her struggling, she can barely move an inch.

As terrified as she is, her fear only grows when she hears someone behind her. She doesn't realize it's someone who's chained up too.]

... Who's there? I'm - I'm not afraid of you!

chains

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus wakes up, groggy and confused and with a pounding in his head that's almost enough to distract from the smell of blood in the air. With a jolt, he sits upright, trying to bring a hand up to his temple to try to dull the pain a bit, only to find both of them secured firmly behind his back. He pulls at the chains, rattling them ineffectually as he looks around, and a woman's voice calls out. ]

I - my name is Orpheus. Who are you? [ He stops his struggling for a moment, listening, and the sound of chains rattling continues just behind him. ] Are you chained up, too?

Nancy Wheeler | Stranger Things

[findingtruth]

1. ARRIVAL

[Sunlight trickles through an open window, and she begins to stir softly from her slumber. The nightmare feels like a distant memory already, and for a quiet moment, Nancy believes that she’s still home. A song – a light and cheerful tune – helps guide her to consciousness, and her eyes flutter open slowly. A hand reaches up, pressing against her temple, and her eyes focus on a side dresser that isn’t hers. Her brow furrows. She doesn’t recognize the pale green lamp either, the lightbulb still burning brightly.

She shoots up from her bed, no longer in a state of drowsiness, and looks around at an unfamiliar room, filled with unfamiliar furniture. She turns herself to face the open window above her bed, pushing the billowing chiffon curtains aside to look outside. And she finds herself gazing upon an unfamiliar street. An abandoned street. Nancy’s brow furrows and she knows she has to get out. Investigate.

She changes, and then heads outside, crossing her arms tightly to her chest as she turns to face a low-set house that isn’t her home. No one has stopped her from leaving. She’d expected to encounter trouble, after waking up in a strange house. That’s why she currently holds a baseball bat in one hand. And yet, she encounters no one and nothing. With a frown, she looks up and down the street – sees the outline of a figure up ahead. They appear to be heading straight towards her, but she can’t make out who they are.

She hopes the approaching figure is someone helpful, but she automatically feels her grip tightening around the bat anyway, eyes wide and hand trembling ever so slightly…]

2. THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.

[It doesn’t take Nancy long to notice the stain on the wall, a mark that hadn’t been there the day before. Nancy, who is always so observant, knows that there wasn’t a stain on that wall when she’d gone to sleep last night, and yet there it is. She frowns, crouches in front of it to get a better look while trying to find an explanation for it.
She can’t find one.

A couple of hours later, her eyes dart over to the stain and she notices that it’s bigger. It’s slowly spreading across the wallpaper, and looks to be taking the shape of a person. She stares at it, shudders, wanting to look away but finding herself unable to do so.

Then she notices the eye, and it feels like it’s staring back at her, right into her soul. Taking a sharp breath, she stumbles backwards, slamming her back against the kitchen countertop. Pain shoots up her back but she barely notices it. Instead, she’s storming outside, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself.
The town is playing tricks on her. She knows she can’t let it get to her, but it’s easier said than done.

Feel free to notice a girl standing out on the street, arms crossed as she stares at her house.]

3. WILDCARD

[Feel free to create your own prompt if there’s something else you’d like to do!]

arrival.

[hoodstar]

Hey — whoa.

( Ichiro holds up his hands as he approaches Nancy, hopefully showing that he means peace. )

You good? Is something chasing you?

Ivar "The Boneless" Ragnarsson | Vikings

[ragnarsson]

I. The Walls Have Ears

It probably wasn't a good idea for him to already be seeing things in the wall given Ivar's mental state isn't the greatest to begin with. A Norseman who trusts too much soon ends up in the grave, so Ivar has always had a healthy dose of paranoia. But this is getting downright ridiculous.

He feels there is someone watching him all the time. At first, he's able to dismiss at nonsense. But the longer this goes on and on, he cannot help but wonder....is it true? Is there someone really there in the walls?

At the end of it all, he goes completely and utterly manic. He starts hacking the walls apart with his axe, his hands, anything that he thinks will work. But no, that's not enough, the furniture needs go too. This won't just stop at his own home, but those of others, and even some of the shops in town.

Whether you encounter him in your home or the grocery store, it's best to approach with caution as he mutters to himself. "They're still in there....oh yes they are....got to keep looking..." Just be careful if you approach him while he's tearing whatever he's fixated on apart. That is a pretty sharp axe after all.

II. Break My Chains

[Ivar is the first one to wake up of the two stuck in the same room together and it's right about now that he's starting to wonder if he's just going to keep bouncing from one strange situation to another in this town for however long he's going to be residing there. Well, nothing to be done right now except try to escape this terrifying situation. When the horrible figure comes in, looking rather like what Ivar has always pictured a fire giant as looking like in his head, he hisses at whoever is across from him.]

Wake up! Come on, don't just sit there like a lump! We've got to get out of here!

[He really doesn't want to be left alone to deal with this monstrous creature all on his own and it looks like the only way to get out of here is going to be working together. Well, Ivar's never been shy about asking for help before, and he's not about to start now.]

III. Arrival

Well, this definitely counted as the strangest experience of Ivar's life, and he's been through some pretty weird ones, like the time he'd met the god (and his grandfather) Odin in person. He's not entirely sure this isn't some prolonged hallucination. Perhaps he'd fallen on the field of battle and this was his dying dream? The letter he finds doesn't really clear up too much and he eyes the food in the jar with suspicion.

He finds a strange contraption in the house he wakes up in, what looks like a chair with wheels on it. Well, that'll be far better to use than just crawling around on his arms like he's warranted to. It only takes a few minutes for him to figure out how to work it exactly. Really, it's such smooth going that he wonders why he never thought to create one of these at home.

Granted, a wheelchair is far easier to use on paved roads and sidewalks then in the grooves of mud and dirt that would be in his home world. As he goes down the street, he'll be looking for anyone who can tell him what the hell is going on as he observes and takes in the town.

"You there!" What can you tell me about this strange place?" He calls out in an accent of indeterminate origin but which definitely sounds Northern European. A few things to note when he speaks to someone: his eyes are extraordinarily ice-blue and the whites of his eyes are bluish-tinted as well, he's got an axe strapped to his back that looks awful sharp, and he's wearing clothes that look positively medieval, which should give a clue as to what time period he's from.

IV. Wildcard

[Want to do something else or get a custom prompt? Just poke me at Light_shade or Lightshade#4738]

II.

[pidgeypidge]

Shouting isn't going to get me moving any quicker, just so you know.

[The shouting isn't technically what had woken her up, but it's doing nothing to help her mood at waking up in yet another sketchy place she doesn't recognize. Pidge blinks and takes a moment to look around... and immediately wishes she hadn't.

As strange rooms go, this one is probably the worst she's seen in a while. And for this place, that's saying something. At least she's not alone?]

I feel like I'm going to regret asking this, but you wouldn't happen to know how we got in here?

[Because she's absolutely not a fan of whatever nonsense Deerington is getting up to this time. While she waits for an answer, Pidge is back to taking stock of the situation. The keys seem like an obvious solution. Too obvious? She hasn't decided yet.]

Grey | OC

[loihtija]

Information about the character

The walls have Eyes. And Ears.
It doesn't take long before Grey simply moves out of the house he's been put in this time. There's obviously some entity bothering the property and he's not in the mood to deal with it right now. Deerington isn't quite the same place as he remembers and he's much rather figure out what's going on before he starts putting in any notions towards clearing whatever spirit has taken hold of the property.

He camps out at the edges of the forest. You might find him lighting up a fire in a ring of stones or washing up in an icy stream, seemingly having no problem with the cold. He's not at all bothered to share his fried fish meant for dinner but you might get a long, deadpan look if you come ogle him half naked in the stream.

Wash away the Madness. Purge the Sin.
Used to prophetic dreams, this is nothing new really. Just kind of different in style from what he's used to.

He follows the white dog into the hallway, hands in his pockets, seemingly relaxed and looking around. Were you in the room with him? He probably didn't open a discussion with you. He's not exactly a talkative man. He just took off after the dog.

In the hallway he's brought to a halt looking up at the reflections that seem to have a life of their own. It's hard to say what he thinks about it given that his face seems expressionless.

Break my Chains and I'll break Yours.
Waking up bound in the chair is definitely a little more disturbing than the rest of it has been this far. The infinity headed dude reminds Grey of a demon and his first instinct is to take it out.

He sits quietly in his chair until the creature leaves, curiously observing those countless eyes and sharp teeth, something very calm about him, as if he isn't all there while he stares at the thing, perfectly still and observing.

When it's gone, he turns those calm grey eyes at whoever is sitting in the other chair and says: "Lets get you off of those ties. Can you move?"

Wild Card
Come at me? Choose your own adventure and all that. You can ping me at piipa if you want to plan something! C:

break my chains.

[startedtheflamewar]

This isn't precisely what Cash was hoping to do, this particular evening. He can remember a set of bizarre, dreamlike circumstances leading him up to this point. But he can't change anything. So it can't be a dream, can it? Or is he up against another Veilist? All Cash has are questions, buzzing in his head.

He watches the large creature leave the room before his gaze is drawn toward the other man in the chair, and then the keys. Normally he'd just break his wrists, pull them out, and let his magic regenerate what he damaged. But it's too tight, he thinks. Figures.

"My chair's not nailed to the ground, at least," he murmurs, appreciating the calm and businesslike question. Cash sucks in a long, steadying breath and strains with his legs to move the chair forward a few inches. Then he stops, his chair having made what seems like an unearthly loud noise — waiting for approaching footsteps. But they don't come. Maybe it just sounds loud in his own ears.

"Reaching these isn't going to be fun," Cash adds, nodding to the pile of keys.

wanda maximoff | mcu

[explosion]

[ wanda is from the end of endgame. references: experimentation, ptsd. ]

1. BREAK MY CHAINS.

---

[ wanda prefers the blip.

the man waddles away, and she glares at his back, trying to puncture his mind. her brows furrow tightly as she tries to pull him back, but he is out of her reach, so strangely out of her range. if she focuses on him, her opportunity to escape will be gone. her opportunity to save them both will disappear from her very reach.

this time, she will save the person beside her. she won't let a titan win once more. no; she will take from him, as she will take from every man and woman who chooses to take his silhouette and stand in his cruel shadow.

when the mam is gone, she listens sharply for a sound. once she determines he is far away, she begins to wriggle, hands aching behind her back as she tries to pull her hands free.

in an american accent: ] Do you think he's realised he has the wrong keys and will fetch the right one?

[ highly doubtful. wanda knows how this goes: this is yet another test.

but she's trying to be positive. give her a gold star, please. ]

2. NETWORK — UN: 🐟 WANDA.

---

Knock, knock.

3. WILDCARD.

---

[ catch her around town. wanda can be found at cafes sitting alone, walking in the park by herself, or bumping into people because she's lost in her own world. ]

text; un: eternalstud

[vampireblood]

Really? A knock knock joke?

cash gillingwater | oc

[startedtheflamewar]

i. the walls.

[ Cash is used to weird things in houses. Giant bugs, ghosts. And he's cleared Crier infestations out of enough of them to know that when things don't look right, you shouldn't relax. So when a piece of the house he's staying in clatters to the ground one morning, and he can... see something moving in it, he tentatively picks it up to get a better look.

Footsteps make him look up, and, impulsively, offer the piece of wooden siding. His normally bright blue eyes are looking a bit cloudier than usual. ] This seem... all right to you?

[ He's tall, well-built. His brown hair would be just starting to touch his collar if he didn't have it combed into attention. There's a touch of a tan on his skin; he's new. But where he just came from, there hadn't been a lot of sun, either. ]

ii. wash away.

All right, maybe following a dog wasn't the greatest idea.

[ Despite the situation, Cash doesn't seem rattled. His face and body language are calm, collected. Getting panicky wouldn't solve anything, and he's always had a pretty good lock on his emotions when strange and dangerous situations are involved. It's why he's still alive.

He breathes slowly, glancing at the person who's just come out of the room he was just in. But then he looks back to the white hallway and how... bright it all seems, oddly. He fixes the stranger with a dry, tired expression. ]

You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?

iii. network (un: maltesefalcon).

Whoever supplies this place with Vitamin D must be making a killing. Does the sun ever show up for a cameo or is it just gloom and doom all the time?

iv. wildcard.

[ ooc: Got something else in mind? I'm game! I'll match whatever format you're most comfortable in, too. ]

iii, network | un: harmaa

[loihtija]

Thinking of getting into the business?

dean winchester | spn (au!endverse)

[venatoris]

cw; mentions of a demon virus, death, mentioned animal death/cruelty, rabid fear of dogs, and things that go hand in hand with a literal plague.

THE WALLS HAVE EARS & EYES

[ deerington is weird.

ever since dean...woke up ( arrived, whatever ), he's felt a sense of foreboding, a chill that ran down his spine and settled at the base, never leaving. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, not anymore - Dean had spent the last five years with it; the heavy weight of his choice on his shoulders -- all of the what if's, the should've could've would've thoughts...they all rolled through his head every single day as he wondered, hating himself just that little bit more with every passing moment.

He'd been so, so sure of himself, of his choice.

There were a lot of lies he'd told both himself and his brother back then, and look where that got them - nowhere good, that's for damn sure. Sam...probably dead, and without a doubt Lucifer's vessel. Dean a short-sighted, disassociated impenetrable asshole that isn't above sacrificing his friends to ensure the Devil dies.

Whatever choice he made that led him here, to this circle of hell, Dean isn't completely certain, but he has no doubt it's his own dumbass fault in one way or another, another choice that he said no to when he should have just said yes. Yes, use me. Take me. What choice do I have, have I ever had?

And yet here, it seems, the pressure is lifted, even if only slightly, and even with all the psychological horrors and stories he's heard in passing. A tiny, microscopic weight has been gently lifted from his heart, and it makes it that much easier to put one foot in front of the other and remember, even if for a brief, fleeting moment, who he was before.

Dean hasn't been here long, no, but it's been long enough to give him time to go through his fluid and see the feed, see the stories told, the lives that are being lived. They're all so very different than his own.

At any rate - he's gone through the motions, like a good boy. he's chased the stain, clawed at it, tore at the peeling wallpaper with blunt, jagged nails until they bled. He even took an axe to it, hefting it in calloused hands and swinging it down hard, straight into the wall - nothing. All it did was increase the raging paranoia that's already in his damn bones. He hasn't hunted, not like he used to, not in years - he's rusty, but he will get to the bottom of this if it kills him.

Maybe it will. Maybe that would be a blessing.

One way or another, though - he'll find a hand. He'll catch the son of a bitch and take hold, grip strong and unrelenting, and give a good, hard yank.

Depending on who (and what) you are, Dean may or may not kill you. Regardless, he's got his gun, and it is trained on whoever he just pulled through the walls. ]

Who the hell are you.

[ It's barely a question, snarled through clenched teeth, eyes glittering with fury, frustration, a tinge of misery and sadness that only the most observant will see.

Mostly though, he's just pissed. ]

conversely--

WASH AWAY THE MADNESS.

[ you win. you yanked him through the wall - lucky, lucky you. Or, maybe you didn't. Maybe you're the unlucky soul who made the same mistake of walking around the city at any given time and got swept up in the bullshit with him.

Hospital band, patient garb -- shit. He's been down this road and he just--

He's snarling over that, annoyed, ignoring his companion for the most part ( and pretending he didn't spend a horrific, nightmarish 24 hours in an asylum at the hands of a wraith), when he notices the dog, and...well. If you're stuck in here with him, you're stuck, because Dean Winchester does not like dogs and it will take an actual act of God to get him to go anywhere near that animal. ]

No.

[ That's all he says, shaking his head, the color leaving his face as he backs away. ]

Get it away. [ He'd kill it, no questions asked, but he finds he's suddenly without the colt, without his weapons. He's just got scrubs, just like the last time he was in an institution, five years ago. ]

wildcard;

ideas? throw them at me. pm me!

wild babyyyyy

[endoftheverse]

[Since the malfunctions in the fabric of Deerington's time and space, Sam's had a shitshow of a time, thank you for asking. The fluctuations in power have had Lucifer hitting his ribs like a battering ram in full now, and some days he can barely bring himself to leave his small apartment because the energy of getting up and walking out is too much. He tussles, he wrestles control back, but sometimes he blanks for a few minutes, feels Lucifer's wings spread and just carry him out of the room and somewhere he wasn't standing only moments ago.

It's like two wet dogs, scratching and biting and growling inside him, and he just has to hang onto the lap bar and keep his promise to long since gone (dead) loved ones. It's fucking exhausting, is what it is. Today he winds up standing on a street corner, unsure if Lucifer brought him here or if he accidentally did it himself; it's getting harder and harder to tell who is who, and if he's disassociating, or-

He sighs, rubs a hand across an exhausted face, and starts toward Hart Mart for caffeine.

He doesn't like to leave the apartment anymore, because being in one place means the town can't find him and pick him apart as easily, but... god, he needs caffeine. Feels like the days before the 'yes', when his eyelids were as heavy as anvils but his heart was pounding hard enough to seize in his chest.

It's fine. It's nighttime. Less people out. Nobody'll see that he hasn't washed his hair in a few days again, or that his shoulder won't step jittering like he's a crackhead and this is just munchies time before the next big hit.

Fuck you, Lucifer, I'm getting coffee, is a genuine thought.

He won't take it back, no matter how ludicrous.

Lucifer talks like someone sitting in a chair in a waiting room, reading a magazine - the kind of way that makes Sam's teeth grit and hatred boil in his veins. It's only a matter of time, Sam. The layers are drying up, just like I promised you. My power's coming back to me. Ergo: embrace the night.

Sam makes his way through the doors, and bumps into someone else's shoulder as he pinches the bridge of his nose with shaky fingers.

He mutters 'sorry'.]

OU Sam Winchester | Supernatural

[family_remains]

The Walls
This is the way Sam came into the world. He awoke in a house he didn't know, with a basket in place of the hellscape he was expecting. He hasn't eaten his gift nor has he checked his Fluid, he just up and left. This isn't where he's supposed to be. This isn't what's supposed to be happening. And as he left, he found madness in a wall that opened and scratched and tugged him through to the face of his brother. A tense, confusing standoff that has Sam Winchester convinced he's in a game of The Devil's devising. That brother can't be his brother because he is in Hell and Dean didn't follow. He couldn't have, right? No-

No, that Dean is a shattered monster made of Sam's own memories and he is here to haunt and hurt and torture him for eternity. 

So at the first chance he got, he left. He booked it and ran without answers.

Blood thunders in his veins, his heart, his ears. It rims the edge of his vision in a way he can't understand (or doesn't want to acknowledge) but that doesn't stop him. It can't. He needs to know what he's dealing with. If Dean isn't Lucifer then where is he. If this isn't Hell (of course it is, Sam, don't be stupid) then where is it? 

He finds refuge back in the house he woke up in, slamming and barricading the door behind him. In the dim light he sees the mark on the ceiling. A strange, ugly twist of a human form and he remembers where he just came from. He remembers, and he wonders... If that was the way in then maybe it's the way back out. 

What does he do? He does what his brother did. He does the only thing that makes sense (none at all) and he makes for the mark, drawing his dagger from his belt and stabbing it into the drywall. There's no magic spark, no whoosh of exultation, no freeing of a spirit. Something else, then. Fine.

Levering the blade he breaks the board of the ceiling back enough to grip his fingers under the gyprock and pull. Pull and growl and grab the first thing he can feel which is soft and warm and-- 
You. He grabs you.  A vice grip on whatever it is he gets- a hand, a fistful of hair- and he pulls as hard as he can. 



Break my chains
The escape was narrow and harrowing, but they make it. 

Sure this is the first of many tests and screwed up games, Sam is green with fury and sick with anger but he can't stop. He can't rest. His hands are cut where the ragged keys bit into his flesh and his heart is pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. 

He eyes his companion with wary hesitation because they could, at any moment, shift into the face of Lucifer himself. That's who he's with, right? Some screwed up game where they have to work together for his amusement? It's sick. It's sick and he's sick of thinking about it. 

There's a chance the person is some poor lost soul bound into The Devil's playground. A background character in whatever story it is Sam is meant to play out.. then again... who knows at this point. Not him. Maybe, for now, it's best if he just plays along. 

That's what it's always been about, right? Playing his role. 

Fighting back the vitriol on his tongue he takes a breath and reassess his situation. They've escaped and made it to.. where. Outside. Somewhere safe? 

No, not safe.. but in less immediate danger. 

Sam absently rubs his wrists, aching from being bound and gives his companion another look over.
 
"We should keep moving," he says. I should go alone, he thinks. Go where, he doesn't know. None of this is making any sense.
 
"What was your name?"


Library
Astounded to find a functional town, Sam heads into the library looking for clues. Anything to make sense of what's going on. He should have read his letter. He should have read his Fluid. But he didn't hang around long enough to do either and if there's any information about anything, he thinks it will be at the library. So c'mere. Help a guy out. He looks like shit but he isn't an unfamiliar face to Deerington, especially as he drifts between bookshelves or reads in the far corner with his back to the wall. As if that will help any.


Wildcard come at me with any character, and situation, any accusation. 

Library

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne was quite fond of the library, as she had been of the royal library back in Valeria. Although it lacked the grandeur and the reverence for knowledge and learning...it still had books. And she was quite fond of books, proud of her ability to read and write. None of her brothers or sisters had ever learned to read. And being unique was something to be proud of, when you were Alastrian.

She was browsing the shelves when she picked up a familiar scent, one that made her smile a little. She'd grown quite fond of Sam.

...of several versions...

And when she followed the scent, she found him browsing the books. "Hi, Sam!" she said, her smile widening and she walked over. Behind her, her long, rope-like braid swaying around her hips like a puppy's wagging tail.

Keith | Voltron

[iknowwhatimdoing]

Break My Chains

[A groan passes Keith's lips as his eyes open, things come into focus. His head throbs like he's been hit over it with something heavy... which is more accurate than he realizes. In short succession, he realizes he's now chained to a chair and there's someone in front of him, plus a lot of suspicious looking keys. Well... crap.]

Hey-- hey, wake up. Something's going on and we need to get out of here!

[First he winds up on some dumb game show and now this? Perfect. Just perfect. Keith can't be sure if it took an even more sinister turn or if this is a whole new experience, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is getting out before things get worse.]

Network; UN: Keith

Is this place always like this or what?

Wildcard
[Want another scenario? Hit me up or leave a prompt here! Keith is fresh from the Feud! episode of season 7.]

Break my Chains

[onerthes]

Ngh...

[Her head shot up when she heard his voice and she groaned. Ok, that hurt. No thank you. Her eyesight was still blurry for a second, by the look of the way that she squinted. She tested the manacles and grunted. That voice sounded familiar.]

Give me a second. Eyes adjusting. What do you know?

Starflight | Wings of Fire | OTA

[lectorem]

1. The Walls Have Ears and Eyes

The moving figure in the walls was very disturbing indeed, but it was also very intriguing. Starflight stared at it not in horror, but in fascination. He scratched at it with his claws hoping to figure it out. It didn't carry the uneasy feeling that the tunnels did, but this had to be animus magic, didn't it? How else would the figure move? But then why would an animus enchant the walls to have a moving picture of a scavenger?

He studied it for some time trying to figure it out. The madness and paranoia haven't set in yet, but the longer he stares, the more his claws itch and the more he wants to scratch and bite.

2. Network

[The camera turns on to give the audience a very up-close look at the face of a dragon with black scales. It blinks and then pulls back a bit, only to tap the screen with a claw]

What is this? I've never seen anything like it before.

[Good thing for those universal translators, because otherwise all one would hear would be growls and roars]

3. Wildcard

[Have your character run across Starflight! He is a black dragon who will be flying around looking at things and attempting to do some hunting of whatever wildlife is around. Apologies for the complete lack of icons]

network | video; un;glitch

[glitchinthesystem]

[ There is a lot to be said when you see a creature of fantasy and myth show up on the screen. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised since this is Deerington but...it's a surprise all right; ]

Uh.

That's what we call a fluid...

and you're a talking lizard...

[ He has a lot of tact. ]

Robyn Goodfellowe | Wolfwalkers | ota

[createdwolf]

[Arrival]

[There's a young English girl cradling a crossbow close to her chest. Judging by her clothes, it definitely looks like she's not from any modern day time period, and that alone is kind of freaking her out.

Still, she does her best to maintain her composure. Despite being clearly kidnapped and whisked away to a town she doesn't recognize.

The first person she meets gets a crossbow pointed at their face.]

All right, better get explaining why you kidnapped me or I'll pull the trigger.

[She won't. But she's trying to sound tough!]

What have you done with my family?

[Arrival - At Night]

[As Robyn gets more settled in, she falls asleep... and that's when her more wolf-y side comes out.

Around town, there's a gray wolf cautiously sneaking around town. If she sees you, she'll try to run - unless you call to her first.]

[Break My Chains]

[As you wake up chained to a chair, your companion... happens to be a young girl. Robyn tugs desperately at her restraints, without much luck in getting free. She feels movement from the chair behind her and pauses carefully.]

... Hello? Is there someone there?

Arrival

[laminae]

[This wouldn't be the first time Fern has gotten a crossbow in the face, and thankfully taking a bolt to the eye isn't the kind of mortal injury for him that it would be for a regular person thanks to being made of grass. His grass twitches slightly as he takes a moment to look over the weapon before answering any questions, because he's a dumb barbarian gremlin.]

Cool crossbow.

[He just wants to put that out there first, before finally holding up his hands a little. He's got a grocery bag in one hand, and it's stuffed with packages of oreos.

She must be new, if she's asking stuff like that.]

No clue who you're talking about. You just show up here? We've all been kidnapping, sort of. [Aaaand another thought occurs to him, which causes his expression to grow more serious.] You ate the stuff in the jar next to your bed, right?

Tsume | Wolf's Rain

[clawandscars]

I. Wash Away the Madness

Tsume is a bit surprised to end up in what looks like some bizarre fever dream that a human being would have thought up. Surely it was nothing a wolfish mind would ever think up. But the dog there is what keeps him interested. Let's just say it reminds him of a friend from home. But no matter how much he tries to communicate with the animal, he can't get any response from it.

That's when he finally turns his attention to the other person there with him. He's not really one much for ever talking with people to begin with, and considering how human-centric the town is, he's mostly been keeping to himself. Now that he actually wants to talk, he finds himself unable to. Well, looks like they're gonna have an interesting time finding a way to communicate with each other until this pale dog leads them where he wants them to go.

II. Arrival

Tsume was sure he'd woken up in stranger places but he really couldn't think any of them right now. Everything here looked very different from the dying world he'd come from, far more alive and vibrant then one polluted through war and destruction to the point that the next Ice Age was starting. Even the smells were more intense than anything else he'd experienced before. On his end, Tsume just looks like any other surly, aloof teen brought into Deerington.

He looks a bit odd wandering around Deerington in an entirely leather outfit that honestly makes him look like he just got off work at a strip club and covered in scars, including the giant X-shaped one that's prominently on his chest. Don't bother pointing any of this out, he's quite aware it's obvious.

If you have a pet or just happen to be around when Tsume is conversing with an animal, you'll be confronted with the sight of the teen seeming to be having a serious and completely rational conversation, even if only one side of it can be heard. "Uh-huh....so that's what's going on....yes, I think I understand...."

III. Network. Accidental Video; un: [username not set]

[The network is treated to the sight of a Fluid that appears to have found its way into the mouth of an animal. Perhaps someone's pet is chewing on it? There's sounds of chewing that seems frantic and desperate like an animal that has its paw caught in a trap. There's a voice of someone who sounds like he is getting very frustrated nearby.]

How do you get this damn thing off?!

[Tsume managed to get the Fluid stuck on his forearm just above one of his paws in the bracelet format and now he can't get it off. Look, the illusion of hands in his human form is just that. He hasn't got any actual digits to manipulate the thing with, only his teeth.]

IV. Wildcard

[Want a custom prompt? Poke me at Light_shade and Lightshade#4738 on Discord!]

II

[createdwolf]

[Robyn was stalking a bird that looked awfully similar to Merlyn. While she's stalking it, she catches the scent of another wolf. But the scent leads her to... a human? Even though they don't smell human at all.

She shyly approaches in her gray wolf form.]

Um... excuse me, am I interrupting?