TDM 001 ● JUNE 2025

[uruz]

TDM: ONE

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PRELUDE

(content warnings: dream horror, loss of autonomy, mild body horror, cult undertones )


You’ve had this dream before.

A moon cracked wide, spilling tendrils from its craters like bleeding silk. A sky starless and slow. And on the horizon: a wave. Massive. Black. Still. It creeps forward every time like sunrise. It hushes before collapse, but every time before this, you wake up just in time.

But not tonight. You can't outrun it even if you tried— it comes crashing down on you at last, swallowing you like a gaping black hole. Saltless, soundless, the water devours. But instead of drowning, you drift, suspended in velvet dark. And in that dark, her voice breathes.

“You don’t have to fall with it.
Let me in.
I can give you everything you’ve ever hungered for.
A place.
A purpose.
Stay.”

She offers. And you— your mouth, your mind— give an answer before you even know you’re speaking. Yes.

The tide recedes. The dark peels away like silk. You awaken beneath a canopy of gold, in a garden that hums with warmth and longing. Soft grass. Strange trees. Fragrant fruits in every color, dripping with light. And a mask upon your face, no straps, no weight, yet it clings to your skin like it was always part of you. You don't want to remove it. You could, maybe . . . But it would feel like tearing your skin away.

She no longer speaks to you, but her orchard breaths a sigh upon your arrival. A force tugs at the edges of your thoughts, beckoning you to contact the web you're now a part of. Welcome, Vessel.

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YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE

(content warnings: sensory manipulation )

An orchard stretches around you in impossible directions, the horizon blurred like wet paint. Trees curl and arch with an elegance that feels practiced— like they’re posing for someone watching. Their trunks shimmer faintly. Leaves flutter even when there is no wind.

You are not alone. Others stir nearby, familiar or unfamiliar, though that distinction begins to blur. You may not know them, or perhaps you have the feeling you do even if you've never met them in your life. Either way, you might wish to know them.

From the strange branches within the orchard hang fruits shaped like stars, teardrops, or glass bells. Each one pulses faintly, waiting to be plucked. Their effects are subtle but powerful, crafted to cater to your desire and wonder:

🍎A pearlescent orb, cool and slick to the touch, whose taste floods you with a future that might be: a fleeting vision of joy, belonging, or beauty you didn’t know you craved. Whoever is nearby sees a glimpse of it too.
🍎A silver-veined citrus, fizzing like champagne. When shared between two, it evokes the feeling of a first time— first love, first rebellion, first triumph — even if you’ve never lived it. The emotional residue lingers between you.
🍎A blood-orange fruit with velvet skin, which when bitten into, causes your voice to harmonize with another’s— even if you weren’t speaking. You’ll find yourselves finishing each other’s thoughts, or speaking a secret you both forgot you held.
🍎A waxen, translucent fig, which grants you a small miracle: something you longed for appears beside you, conjured from dream. It might be a lost keepsake. A voice. A scent. A face.
🍎A smooth, silver fruit with a mirrored skin. When bitten, it briefly reflects the dreamer’s true self — not as they are, but as they wish to be. For a moment, others may see it too. The illusion clings for a time, making the character appear more like their ideal self in body, presence, or aura.
🍎A dark plum that glows faintly pink, almost heart-shaped, and warm to the touch. Its juice runs red and sticky, clinging to the lips. To taste it is to be filled with longing— for intimacy, for sensation, for touch. The desire may be gentle or overwhelming, but it lingers, tuned to the presence of someone nearby. It is not mindless. It is focused.

At the center of the orchard is a fountain, still and inviting. Its water tastes like clarity— and for a moment after drinking, your thoughts shape your surroundings. What you create might intertwine with what another dreams beside you.

Sleep does not speak in words. She breathes through the trees, hums through the soil, stares through your mask. Her voice, barely a whisper:

“Thread the needle, My Vessel.
Want.
Want, and see what answers you.”

You feel it,— if you resonate with another, something will change. Maybe the orchard will shift again. Maybe it already has.

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THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES

(content warnings: grief, loss, emotional vulnerability)

The orchard is gone. In its place stretches a landscape of ashen grass, supple and fragrant underfoot, warmed by a pale light that doesn’t seem to come from the sun. All around, a soft breeze stirs the fields— endless, loamy, and quiet. The air smells like soil after rain. It is peaceful here. But not happy.

Scattered across the fields are half-buried remnants: old beds, cracked record players, wilted bouquets, melted candles, notes scrawled on napkins— things lost in the moments between love and loneliness. Everything here feels half-remembered, yet painfully familiar. If a character reaches for one of these objects, they may hear a voice whispering a name they have tried to forget, or one they wish they'd remembered sooner.

In the distance, a shrouded figure walks the fields, unhurried, always just out of reach. Their back is turned, but their presence pulls like gravity. Some may choose to follow. Some may wait. And some may realize they’re walking beside someone else— a stranger who seems to carry a memory they, too, once held.

This is a moment of reflection. Interactions blossom from shared worries, slow confessions, or uncanny synchronicities. Characters might recognize something in another, such as a gesture, a phrase, a scent— and feel that thread begin to tug. Best follow its lead . . . You won't be able to leave unless you do.

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EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS

(content warnings: body horror, transformation, loss of autonomy, psychological horror, cosmic dread )

You awaken— or perhaps you never truly slept. The orchard is gone. The fields have withered. All is silence now, and the air is soaked in dread.

A still, uncanny plane stretches out before you: rotted soil, stagnant pools, shattered glass trees that hum with an almost-familiar voice. Echoes of what the dream once offered—sweet fruit, blooming things, beauty— remain only as scars on the land. Their pleasures have fermented into menace. The dreamscape is collapsing.

Sleep, ever present, ever watching, does not weep. She has already taken what she wants, and you see her teeth stretched too wide in the shadows. In the reflection that splits back at you. In the soundless breeze with much more bite and possession than the gentle caress of invitation. She whispers, from the shadows between dying stars:

"You said yes. Now let me see what you become."

The mask on your face tightens, no longer decoration. A binding. You are no longer merely dreaming— Your skin may change fluidly, or break down through the bones violently. Your flesh may split, brimming with power, or your blood could burn like lava oozing through your veins. You may even experience it again, and again, and again; a different beast or burst of magic each time. Whether painful or painless, You are now either Token, or Offering. You may not yet know what that means— But your body does.

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EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH

(content warnings: body horror, fungal infections, parasitism, loss of agency, cosmic horror, violence, death, cult imagery)

Your surroundings bend and break with growing instability: The sky splits open, revealing a bleeding red moon, weeping tendrils like raw nerves. It feels wrong in a way you have no words for. It sees you. And it beckons for blood.

The dream does not want peace now. It wants performance. It wants pain. And above all, Sleep wants you all to herself. She watches from the broken heavens, humming in delight as you run, as you fight, as you fracture under the weight of your becoming. Perhaps you turn on each other, frightened with what you have become or too frazzled to control yourself, or the newfound power you possess.

There are other things to look out for, though. Creatures stalk this unraveling plane: malformed creatures with mutated faces and fungal blooms bursting from their orifices, or tendrils slithering from what were once mouths and eye sockets. Once Vessels. Hosts. They may speak with familiar voices. They may try to barter, or bite. Those with hands and fingers may try and force your eyelids to part, to tilt your gaze to the sky above you, chanting in tongues that drill into your brain stem. Hushing in song. Whispering Look at her. She is Beautiful.

If you are caught, if you gaze up at Her for too long— you too will suffer the same fate. Fungal bursts and tendrils will spurt from your mouth, invade you from the inside and reach out to her in sacred reverence. It's a horrible way to go. If this is an end you find, you too, despite your pain, may begin to smile. You might have even more reason to attack your fellow Vessels. They too, must see Her beauty like you do.

The song stutters. The dream recoils when you succumb to the worst of Her parasitism, even though you don't lose consciousness. It is not Sleep who speaks next. In your last few seconds of awareness, you hear in your ears, in your mind, in your soul, snarling and thick with fury:


“What have you done?”

The world begins to scream. You begin to fall.

The dream is over.

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NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia’s first TDM! All TDMs will be considered game canon.
➤ You are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the Tether mechanic as well as Vessel options and the Network to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Mod invited players may currently extend one invite per player. Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to the appropriate top level to solicit one, or, solicit one from the mod here. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

network ᛗ logs ᛗ ooc ᛗ memes ᛗ navigation

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Comments

QUESTIONS

[uruz]

➤ TDM related questions can be asked here. General game questions can be asked on the faq.

[demainvient]

Question about the masks! Do they come off at any point so characters can see each others' faces? Do they have to be physically removed or would they fade somehow?

INVITES

[uruz]

➤ Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to this top level to solicit one. If you recieve an invite, head on over to the mod invite page and fill out the form here. The mod will get in contact with you privately to approve the invite. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Contact</b>: <b>TDM Top Level:</b> <b>Previous RP history:</b>

[sadpoem]

Player Name: Panthera
Contact: pantheraliam
TDM Top Level: here
Previous RP history: here

Maelle | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Spoilers for Act 3 in All Threads

[descendre_encendres]

[OOC Note: Hiii, this is jenetequitteraipas with the actual journal now. This is an Act 3 Maelle, please don't spoil yourself. I beg u. I have an opt-out but I do not have an invite to the game. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to pm. ♥]

Spoilers for Act 3 are Inevitable

i. Un. You Can Thread the Needle: A blood-orange fruit with velvet skin

[From the fruit, her voice feels like an echo. The sounds and voice in her head vibrate like a cat's purr. It's calming, reassuring. Should she distrust it? She doesn't try. She easily agrees, reaching outward for something, someone.]

ii. Deux. The Daylight Recedes: Gustave

[She catches a glimpse in the corner of her eye. A notebook settled on the ground, worn and well-used. She knows the name written upon it and reaches to take it, never a wonder or doubt in her mind how it got there. It belongs to her now, maybe she dropped it. But as she touches it, as her hand grasps it's familiar edges she hears an impossibility in her ears.]

Gustave?

[It's near a whisper when the words escape her, before she lifts her head, her eyes searching, darting around her. He's gone, she reminds herself but then who is that ahead of her? The journal that was on the ground, she clutches it to her chest and follows the silhouette. It can't be him. She hasn't fixed things yet. Lumiere is still...

But he's getting away. What was a walk becomes a jog then a sprint. Why can't she catch him?]

iii. Trois. Everything We Love Resets: Set Me On Fire

[Within the voice she feels betrayal, her heart sinks and plummets. She's made a mistake, she's messed up again. The thought doesn't simmer for long before the world feels warm. It is no comfort, it is overwhelming. Heat surrounds her and engulfs her until embers glow around her, on her skin. With any movement she makes, any flail, any swipe, the embers ignite into flames until she's encased in them. Everything feels impossibly hot but all she can do is scream.]

iv. Quatre. Even When We Run with Death: See No Evil

[Like a child she fights against their words, their encouragement, their pleading. She's realized now something is wrong, something isn't right. And she is refusing to give in, if she can. It's a weak attempt. She shuts her eyes, covers her ears. It borders on 'if I can't see them, they can't see me'. But short of risking that insatiable fire, she doesn't know what else to do.]

v. Cinq. Wildcard

[Feel free to wing it or pm if you'd like to sort out something specific!]

iii. spoilers all the way down but vague (also cw: body horror)

[tache]

spoilers and things eventually

[ Lune knows that scream. It's a sound that makes her stomach drop and her heart plummet, and even in the midst of her own pain, of fingers burning and splitting open at the edges, she's instinctively looking around with wide and wild-eyed panic. ]

Maelle. Maelle?!

[ Her head moves this way and that, scanning.

And she sees the fire. Lune pushes herself to her feet and closes the gap between them. Her hands are already moving to reach out, to grab her, trying to douse the flames. No magic springs to her call, no ice, no healing... Dammit. ]

I've got you. Just hold on, I've got you--

[ There's magic in her now, thrumming under the surface. It isn't enmeshed with the Pictos on her skin but it'll have to do. She reaches out with it and blood, of all things, responds to her call. A gasp escapes her, and she pulls away. Once more she tries, the blood trying to commune with the fire, trying to still it. ]

ranni the witch | elden ring

[deathstealer]

[ ooc: small disclaimer. ranni speaks in a way I can only describe as gently shakespearean, and since I know some people find that hard to read, I have both eased up a little on the shakespeareanisms, and done the whole 'elden ring dialogue is delivered format-wise like poetry with frequent linebreaks' thing, because that makes it easier to read. hopefully?? ]

✘ ⸻ thread the needle

[ At first, there is a light. A star, a void, a dark moon, a something that any nearby eye is simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by. To look upon it feels nauseating, to behold such power feels bone-rattling.

And then it sighs; and resolves into a woman sitting on a low branch in the orchid.

Under the moonlight, her skin is a gentle powder blue, light reflecting harshly off her porcelain skin. The white mask conceals much of her features, but a second face of starlight is conjoined to the first, a spectral eye and mouth and jaw watching the world. She has two pairs of hands folded in her lap, a great furred cloak and witch's hat making her look bigger than she is. She glances up at the moon, and if one pays close attention, one might see a split second of sadness in her features before it's replaced with curiosity. There's an unatural stillness to her, a lack of motion associated with biological beings. No rise and fall of the chest, no idle movements.

With one questing hand, she plucks a silver-veined citrus fruit off the branch she's sitting on-- and is swamped by triumph.

The triumph of rebellion. The blood-soaked satisfaction of necessary murder.

She'd dwell in the feeling, if not for seeing the expression of someone nearby who is clearly sharing the same emotion. It doesn't take a witch to understand what is happening. ]

Ah, forgive mine intrusion.
Thy confusion is clear.

[ Her voice is low, husky, polite but but sharp. ]

It seems this fruit causeth more problems than its worth.
But still; might we revel in this sensation for a minute longer?

✘ ⸻ daylight recedes

[ After the orchid fades, Ranni finds herself in a place she is certain is the same, geographically, but stripped of the dream-like sensation that granted it such a beautiful orchid. There is nought but grass and forgotten items; a stagnant but pretty land, the sort of place she is entirely familiar with.

She is not daunted. She has been pulled from eternal doubt and fear and loneliness, a life among the stars-- yanked back down to an earthly presence. Bereft of her cause. Her purpose. Her dark path. But she perseveres.

Crouching down, Ranni unearths something from the dirt. One pair of hands digging through the soil to reveal a half-melted candle, the other pair steepled thoughtfully in front of her. Contemplatively, she walks. The sound of porcelain and metal feet is soft against the grass and soil, clicking only occasionally against a small rock. She moves as if gliding, real and spectral hair both shifting in the breeze. There is someone walking next to her as they idly follow the strange figure. She still cradles the candle in her hands. ]

I was pulled from the stars; were thee also robbed of purpose?
Or is thy existence only now lent meaning?

[ There's a sly amusement in her voice. ]

T'would be a fine way for a destiny to start.

✘ ⸻ even when we run with death

[ That red, bleeding moon is one of the worst things that Ranni has witnessed.

The two moons in her own land were peaceful. Beautiful. Still, and powerful. Her own dark moon had been distant and cold, but logical, brimming with magic. Her mother's full moon had always been a light to guide the way on a chill night.

This-- this is an abomination. This cracked, weeping thing that spills out tendrils like rot. This baleful eye that hangs in the night sky like a wound. It is so terrible that Ranni can scarcely look away. It is only when she feels the creeping claw of something other that she yanks her gaze downward, too canny and too studied of magic to be immediately fooled by what she is certain is another god. She is no stranger to bizarre deities.

Not long ago, strange pain had wracked her doll body, an impossibility as she is constructed of porcelain and metal and not nerves. And now, a bright halo shines behind her head, a slice of white-blue moon. Ranni has resolved to study it later, should there be a later.

The land around her has grown worse still. She stands as a silent beacon, red light circling the brim of her hat, idle despite the creatures that stalk this landscape. She can hear them speak occasionally; rabid whispers that she turns a deaf ear to. ]

Close thine ears to this trickery.

[ Her advice comes urgently to the closest person she sees. The spectral face conjoined to her mask-covered face looks serene, fireflies of energy drifting from the former like snow, but there is the faintest hint of trepidation to her voice. ]

Avoid their touch. Avoid their whispers.
Nothing just or fine could cometh from beasts who wouldst dwell under this bloody moon.

thread the needle

[tache]

[ The woman in blue would draw anyone's attention. She's certainly captured Lune's in the moment. She stands alone nearby, her eyes on the trees and the fruit, clear distrust written across her face. There is hunger and there is not; there is thirst and there is not. She is awash in the memory of emotion and sensations even as her body still feels weightless and wrong.

All of this feels wrong.

So seeing someone partake of the fruit at least gives her the opportunity to see what happens, even if her heart gives a little lurch of panic. She should warn the woman, but it doesn't seem warranted. Not in the moment. What Lune expects is poison or something worse, like a curse; instead, she's the one suddenly awash in feeling, in memory. The thrill of battle, of a great calamity conquered. The knowledge that things might be okay. That she is alive.

...But she hadn't even touched the fruit.

Lune exhales when spoken to, finally stepping closer. ]

So I'm not imagining it. You're feeling this too.

Sunny | OMORI

[sadpoem]

((ooc: please check out his CWs before continuing; also, Sunny is almost entirely silent, so expect very little dialogue!! <3))

1 - you can thread the needle;

[Another dream. Sunny has painted this landscape before, color splashed on a black canvas. He sees trees and sky stretching out in every direction, and there's nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing Sunny might notice is that there aren't any watermelons among the many handsome fruits. No matter. He'll pluck one from every branch anyway, placing them in the makeshift sack he's created from his vest. He approaches someone, familiar in that way that those you see in your dreams can be, and thinks to share a fruit with them. He holds out the vest, displaying the many choices inside. Will you partake?]

((ooc: if you feel like shaking things up, rng which fruit your character chooses >:3c))

2 - the daylight recedes;

[He comes across something in the landscape. It's half-buried in wet soil, only a few raindrops away from becoming mud. He crouches down beside it to get a better look, brow subtly pinched over his eyes. He worries. Anyone nearby might sense it through the murmur, that anxious hesitation. His hand reaches for the object - a Polaroid camera - with trembling fingers.

[But he can't quite get himself to take it.]

3 - everything we love resets;

[Sunny's bones don't break, but it feels like they do. He feels pain like he's only ever imagined, blood boiling in his veins, needles threaded through his skull. He can't breathe, so he can't scream. Whether he's balled up on the ground, writhing, or lying perfectly flat, still, he can't tell. All he can do is wait for the mask to overtake him, to become whatever he's becoming.

[Eventually, it all fades into white noise. Sunny thinks he's sleeping, or maybe waking up. His heart is still beating too fast. He opens his eyes, and he can still see. The world looks different...

[At some point, he'd found his way to the ground. He sits up, looks around. A small "?!" appears above his head, stark white, then disappears. He doesn't seem to notice.]

4 - even when we run with death;

[Sunny isn't fast. He isn't strong. He's spent the last four years, locked in a room, existing only within the confines of his own mind. His body is thin, frail-looking, too small for his age.

[He doesn't stand a chance - not against monsters like this.

[The boy runs, and it's a pitiful display, tripping over shadows, scraping his knees on the ground as he tries to scramble away. It's not a matter of if he'll be overtaken, but when.

[And the poor thing can't even scream for help.]

wildcard;
((ooc: I'm open to pretty much anything, so if you have other ideas you wanna hit me with (or network stuff), go for it; u can hit me up for plotting via journal pm or @ pantheraliam o vo7))

( 2 )

[offseers]

[ noah has been careful. about touching things. reaching out. his knuckles still ache. the bruises may have faded, but the memories, oh they wrap around his heart, thorny and barbed. and in his shadow is . . . him.

this other object is unusual to him though. he's never seen anything like it. ]

What's that?

Toki Wartooth | Metalocalypse | ota

[dethangel]

[A. THREAD]

[Toki's always had a particularly active imagination, and of course that flows right into dreams. This one is... different, though. A different voice from the usual family or friends, and now that the apparent nightmare part is over, a setting he hasn't really visited.

He walks down a path, peering at the trees surrounding him. No candy and rainbows, no icy forests and creepy villages. Maybe that's why he's not really getting the fact that it's a dream right away.

The trees are pretty and the fruit is definitely enticing even just to look at, so as he passes by one he particularly finds interesting, he reaches into his pocket so he can take a picture with his phone and send it to someone.]

Huh... forgot my phone.

[So instead of taking a picture, he grabs it right off the tree: a weird glowy thing that kind of looks like a heart. It's cute. When he bites into it, it's pretty messy, so when he notices a presence behind him, he turns, looking way too "bloody" for what comes out of his mouth next.]

...Do you wanna hold hands?

[B. NETWORKING]

[Toki reaches out to that weird vibe that's trying to connect him to his surroundings with a very, very important question.]

Where's the bathroom?

[C. RESETS (the body horror option) (daemon and wraith)]

[Okay, Toki's been wandering around for a while now, and now that everything's all messed up... well, that's more like it, isn't it? It's not his usual brand of nightmare, but it's still typical. He has more important things to worry about than the scenery, though.]

Fuck!

[He falls to the ground, clutching his head as a pair of horns works its way out of his head.

But maybe that's not all. Maybe after he's fully transformed into some variety of demon creature, it resets. It happens again, only this time he's back to normal, except he's not.

Now he's on the ground for a different reason: he's dying, and it's starting to show. He reaches out for assistance, groaning softly. Maybe he even grabs a leg if someone gets close enough.]

Help?

[D. WILDCARD]

[i figure since it's a dream thing toki'll probably be pretty understandable so he doesn't have to fight with english. totally willing to have him change offering types as many times as necessary before i fully decide on one too. wanna do something else? bring your own prompt, plot with me, or ask for your very own starter here or at agentkaz!]

B

[deltastrike]

If you make that discovery I wish to be informed at once. I also seek a quick visit with the bath chamber.

[Theseus would never denigrate the pastoral laborers who work the fields, but running around in an orchard has already gotten him dirtier than royalty is supposed to get. ]

lune | clair obscur: expedition 33

[tache]

[ ooc: No spoilers in the top-level and options here, and I will not be posting spoilers in any threads unless they come up with castmates! Those will be appropriately marked (or obnoxiously hidden under cuts). Also, I am good for brackets or prose; I'll match you. PM me if you want a targeted started! ]

---

prelude to the needle.
[ The dark rises up and Lune is falling.

Falling, ever falling, weightless and hollow, in petals that are suffocating. She is desperate and terrified and angry, and no voice that beckons can hold her back from the inevitable. Yes. Whatever is happening, it can't be the end. She won't allow it. Just another chance--

And she awakens in the garden, hand out stretched for nothing, bare fingers cresting over warm grass. Getting up feels challenging, her fingers brushing over something that drapes over her face. It doesn't prevent her from seeing, oddly enough, and it's weightless. With fumbling fingers, she starts to remove it, and then thinks better of it - just for the moment - as she goes to wander barefoot through the orchard at her own pace.

But she can be found later, eyeing the trees warily (as one does), and sitting on the lip of the fountain. She is pensive, tense, and watches anyone who approaches with curiosity. ]

You might want to take care around the fruit. We don't know what it does.

[ 'We' because, of course, others are here too. No one she's recognized just yet, which makes her ill at ease. No one dressed like the people of Lumière, no one wearing an Expedition uniform. She doesn't understand. ]



the daylight recedes.
[ Another landscape, darker than the last. The orchard has vanished, its comfort gone. Instead, Lune walks among a field of old thoughts and memories that feel just out of reach, like some kind of nostalgia for a time she can't recall. There are baskets and urns full of roses, red and white, but no one to give them out; no stalls to house them. Are they from this year's Gommage? Last year's? Ten years ago?

No one's here to give her an answer.

Disgruntled, she says to no one in particular: ]

This is just another illusion.

[ Like the mask, which hasn't taken her over. There's no Axon. Or is there, just further afield, or in hiding? She can't sense anything appropriately, her magic dimmed to silence. Her feet carry her further, to a broken guitar. It's hers, she thinks. Black, sleek, now old and decrepit. But that can't be hers, hers is new. Isn't it? She touches a hand to her head.

And whispered to no one: This is all wrong. ]



even when we run with death. (note: will be alternating between Runecaster, Lightweaver, and Bloodwright / cw: some body horror depending on type)
[ The illusion is gone. Here is the truth. And for all the terror here, all the crawling dread, Lune feels more in control. This is just another cataclysm, another set of monsters. And no matter what's happening to her...

When one falls, we continue.

Her thoughts are cast far and wide to The Network, not caring what comes along with it: the steely determination, the spike of fear. Let people feel it. But a message comes with it - ]

"If you need to, run. Find somewhere to hide. Those of you who can fight: help where you can. We need to regroup and keep away from these things."

[ Nothing good can come from them, after all, and she's not about to find out what happens when one gets close enough to touch.

Lune doesn't know what's become of her body, of the stains on her fingers, of the hum of magic that now courses through her. It's not recognizable and doesn't feel in tune with the Pictos on her skin, not anymore. But she isn't a child any longer, unattuned, uncertain. She'll stand and fight regardless. ]



wildcard.
[ Want something else? Pick a different prompt, change it up, or PM me for a closed stater. ]

Prelude to the needle

[sleepfan]

((OOC: I'm in Act III at the moment, so spoilers up until the end of Act II are alright!))

[ In a dream, there is no wrong way to go. No urgency. Linhardt wanders through the orchard, vaguely moving towards the center without conscious awareness.

Stopping in front of one of the trees, the young man runs a hand up the shimmering trunk, fingertips slow and careful, cranking his head back and watching the leaves move with a look of curiosity and then, as he continues to watch, consternation, his eyebrows coming together and his mouth frowning slightly. The leaves shouldn't be moving that way; there's no wind to guide them. The trees, and their fruits, are wrong. They're all too similar to one another. Even magical trees differed from one another, and every fruit that Linhardt sees is not only perfect, but identical.

An idea occurs to him.

He reaches out to pluck one of the reflective fruit, motions delicate in case it's not as robust as it looks. As he's holding up the fruit to try and use its mirror like properties to catch a glimpse of the mask covering his face, Linhardt is startled by someone speaking behind him, and he drops it on to the ground.

It's strange to see someone and not feel them. After turning, he can see the woman sitting on the fountain's edge, but she has no more discrenable life energy than a bucket. He feels blind, despite being able to see her clearly in the daylight, sitting on the fountain.

She's not wrong.]

Maybe it's a gullibility test?

[ The woman has what are clearly linguistic markings strewn about her body. What language is that? He's never seen anything like that. Perhaps it's some kind of pictographic language? Or some form of cipher? But why would someone have a cipher inscribed on their skin? His eyes linger on the glyphs for a moment before he catches himself.

People don't like being stared at.

Linhardt forces himself to make momentary eye contact. ]

Do you think this is a nightmare, then? That this place is dangerous?

[Is she some manner of oracle? The one downside to dreams is they don't work on any form of logic. Often what one feels is what's important. So perhaps since she seems like an oracle, she is one.]

Maria Renard | Castlevania Nocturne

[summonbeasts]

[ooc: i'm still trying to decide between beastkin and shadowbinder so i may use them interchangeably.]

[I] YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE;

[The same dream, night after night after night, like a moment stuck in time that won't move on. She woke up far too many times gasping over it, drug out just before the darkness falls. In some terrible way it reminded her of when she had reached into those darker parts of herself and let the power swallow her up whole.

Then one night it finishes. She expects to wake up again with sweat on her skin and fear coalescing into a lump in her throat but tonight it that dark wave finally crashes into her, fill up her senses and drag an answer out of her she never meant to give to such darkness.

She all but staggers into the orchard itself with her senses reeling over everything. The grass, the trees, the scent of fruit in the air -- Maria reaches a hand up to her head to brace what she thinks must be a headache coming. Instead her fingertips meet the edge of something smooth, something she knew was there to begin with but only now recognized it as something foreign. Something she ought to want to remove.

She ought to but she doesn't.

She speaks in an exhale, voice slightly shaky.]

What is this?

[Not just the mask. Pick a topic -- the wave, the orchard, whatever. What is this.]

[II] THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES;

[The orchard is there in one moment and fades to nothing in the next. Things jut from the ground and for a moment Maria can't help but bend to reach for one of them. It glitters through the dirt, the reflection of the pale light off of it calling to her.

Once she brushes away the dirt though Maria realizes it's not what she had half-hoped and half-feared it was. It's a mirror, the shards barely held together by it's frame and her visage splintered between them all near unrecognizable.

Her breath comes out in a low, slow shutter of a sound that feels loud against the otherwise quiet.]

[III] EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS, EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH;

[A] [In one instance Maria writhes where she stands, her hands palming and clawing over the mask on her face with an almost feral intensity. She certainly can't be overlooked or blocked out with the way she's screaming up at the split-open sky.]

STOP! STOP THIS! I WON'T!

[It's not doing much good of course, no amount of yelling is going to force the change happening to her to halt. Instead the shadow she's becoming, the one bleeding out of her and streaking across the ground around her, it reacts. Violently. Tendrils snap and whip and writhe like Maria herself does. The darkness crackles like the banked embers of a fire.]

[B] [Then at one point when the shadows calm and recede Maria's writhing comes to slow halt. Instead of dripping in shadows she now turns a glance towards someone, anyone slightly nearby. Behind the trio of holes in the mask where her eyes must be is a glimmer of light much like the nightshine cats bear.

Her breath comes in big huffs as her shoulders slump. She's obviously been fighting something and it makes more sense when she rasps out:]

She is ... very insistent, isn't she ...

[A bit of gallows humor?]

[IV] WILDCARD;

[Feel free to hit me up for any other ideas you might have. PMs as well as Plurk (goodluckstarfighter) are both open for plotting.]

I

[richesse]

We have the same question.

[ Lortel taps fingers on her mask, smiling beneath it at this familiar stranger. ]

I wish I knew. It feels like a dream.

miles upshur / outlast

[walriders]

YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE.

[ Out of the weirdest things that has happened to Miles in his life, he's unsure where he would place ending up in a random orchard in a world he hadn't exactly agreed to join, but also... had? It's pretty damn high on the list all things considered. The asylum probably remains at the top. Possibly. He looks around, sees the people surrounding him looking around in a similar fashion, and it makes him want to join them in their investigation of the area.

As he wanders around looking at the various plants sprouting what looks like various types of fruit, he finds himself fixated on a glowing plum. This was the last thing he expected to see - fruit can glow? - but he's trying to convince himself to be less surprised about things as he goes along.

What does shock him is his hand reaching for it, pulling it off of the tree, tossing it between his hands. ]

Could be poisonous... [ It's a small mutter just to himself. If there's anything he's learned, it's to be wary. But still, he can't really help it — he takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. Wants. ] What the fuck?

[ He looks around. Eyes fixate on one person. ] Hey. You tried this thing?

THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES.

[ Miles leans down briefly, touching the grass that sways beneath him. Almost like he's trying to find something in between the blades, the journalist within him coming out easily. There's nothing in the grass but there's plenty to look at just further away, and he finds himself walking there, stepping in between beds, music players, candles. It's the napkins he finds himself interested in.

As he picks one up and reads through it, he's almost disappointed to find that it's just a declaration of love, a reminder of someone's devotion to another. He was hoping for some information instead, but he supposes something is better than nothing. It's dropped back where it was found as he looks through more of the items spread around the area.

He ignores the voice whispering to him. Or tries to. It keeps talking to him about all those he encountered at the asylum. Walrider being the most prominent (and it makes him question where the being is. There's something buzzing beneath his skin, but).

There's someone walking. He doesn't follow, but finds himself stood next to another. ]

Find anything interesting here? Or helpful?

EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS.

[ It hurts. It hurts. The mask is dragging into his face, fusing with his bones, metal replacing where skin once was. The fingers he used to have are in pain, even if they aren't actually there. Cracks roll down his arms, lighting up in a faint glow, and how the fuck is that even possible? It shouldn't be. But neither should it be possible to be dragged into another world. Maybe this is his punishment for Billy Hope. Maybe this is another of Murkoff's tricks.

He hopes so - then he has a chance to escape.

It ends. Eventually. ] Holy fuck.

[ All that deep breathing he'd been taught did nothing. Pain still shoots through his limbs as though it were still happening, and he has no idea what has happened. His teeth are grinding together. Should probably not do that.

He's on the ground. Can't move. ] I never want to do that again. Jesus.

you can thread the needle; cw: mention of hallucinations & death

[opheliac]

[jinx had been sitting here underneath the orchard for what felt like hours. and it could very easily be that long, given she had lost her sense of time somewhere down the line. as well as the fact that she had been remarkably motionless, her gaze settled on the fruit she was holding. and she doesn't seem to look the man's way when he approached the tree, either. one could argue that maybe she was also captivated by the luminous produce. but it's when he speaks that the bluenette finally takes notice; she slants her head only slightly in his direction — studying him cautiously as he partakes of the fruit.

she continues her silence when questioned, and the teenager simply glances back down to the orb in her hands. slow but sharp, she digs her fingernails into the fruit — the juices leak along her digits, and it drips and soaks onto her lap. what she is feeling in her clutches feel real enough, but everything else beyond herself and this fruit feels so... fiction. and who is this man addressing her? another one of her hallucinations? it's quite possible, but she doesn't remember killing this one unless he was one of the countless enforcers. wetting her lips first, she parts them to speak — her tone extremely hoarse, like she hadn't spoken in days.]

No. [jinx thought to say nothing else beyond that, but then reconsidered.] ... Lost my appetite.

megumi fushiguro | jujutsu kaisen

[potentialman]

i. thread the needle
[ He was dying, wasn't he?

Everything that happened in Shibuya is running together, one long night of desperation and blood and mayhem. There were fights. His energy had just about run dry, once he'd gotten caught up in that domain clash with Dagon. Then that stranger had put a weapon through him. He'd managed to deflect it enough, he's pretty sure, so it hadn't hit anything vital. But then the swordsman who'd been killing the assistant managers had taken a stab, and that one he's almost certain did hit something —

— and then he'd called Mahoraga. That's right.

Death seems an awful lot slower than he'd always figured it was going to be, doesn't it?

Megumi's not sure what else there is left to do, but wait for whatever nonsense his hazy mind has dreamed up to stop, slow down, and let him go. So he wanders the orchard, pausing here and there to look up, holding up a hand to feel the nonexistent breeze that somehow still has the leaves astir. His fingers graze a fruit.

Well, why the hell not. He's dead either way, but maybe he can at least go with the taste of something other than his own blood on his tongue. ]



ii. daylight recedes
[ Most of the objects scattered through the field don't capture Megumi's attention. He looks past bouquets, candles. Faded photographs. Things that ought to be meaningful to someone, though maybe not to him — or are they? He shakes his head, as if to try and jolt the intrusive thoughts out of it.

The thing that finally catches his notice is a crumpled piece of paper. He kneels to scoop it up, unfolds it and smooths the creases so he can read it.

A receipt from a bet made on a horserace.

Why should that matter? ]

...stupid. [ Megumi lets the scrap of paper flutter to the ground, and turns to move on. ] I don't care.

[ Something in him still feels like he should. ]



iii. we run with death
[ Even without a name for the creatures that are stalking the surroundings, moaning and chanting and reaching to grasp at him, this is still the most sense anything has made since this dream (nightmare?) began. These things aren't curses, or at least not curses as Megumi's familiar with them, but the similarities are undeniable. The sense of corruption, of wrongness. The body horror. The dogged attempts to drag anyone in reach down with them.

Whatever is going on, however he got here, he's still a jujutsu sorcerer.

He knows what to do with curses.

Megumi puts his hands together, intending to make the hand seals for his shikigami, but the shadows don't coalesce into the familiar forms he's used to. Instead, the shadows themselves surge forward, snaking around the nearest creature like a network of vines, pulling it back from him and holding it to the ground, restricting its movements.

That's not how he meant to do it, but okay, sure? ]



iv. something else?
( If you've got another idea, I'm probably down for that too! PM or atkascha if you want to hit me up. )

( ii )

[offseers]

What's stupid about it?

[ it looked like a memento. a memory. long past, brushing against the mind and the heart. mementos were for city-folk, to make up for their lack of husks. they had no other markers for death. perhaps it is the same for this man here. these people, part of nature's cycle. ]

the forsaken | oc

[aeviternitas]

thread the needle.  ∞    

A figure stands between two rows of trees, head turning slowly to look between the different strange fruits. His hair is loose, long enough nearly to trail the ground. The hem of the robe he wears, white, thin and draping, drifts against the grass with the breeze.

He cannot remember the home of the gods, anymore. Trying conjures only muddled images of green. When he looks, now, peering through the weave, he sees only dead grass and trees gnarled with decay. It has been as long since he has seen the realm of humans in person, too. So now, in a veritable forest of trees laden heavy with fruit, bare feet in lush grass, the Forsaken is in awe, staring at the green leaves as they dance even without wind as if it is just for him. Each fruit, unfamiliar as they are, seem all equally enticing. That this is a dream is plain, but he cannot help himself. Even if it will taste of nothing, as he expects, the scent is dizzying, impossible to resist.

CITRUS 🍊 He reaches with both hands, standing on tiptoe, to select a citrus fruit. He plucks it delicately, as though it might shatter with any amount of force. Then, he pierces the colorful rind carefully with a nail, and peels it away from the plump segments of fruit inside.

It is only when he finally realizes someone is nearby that he looks away from the fruit he holds in his hands. Without thinking, he parts the fruit in two, and offers one half with an expression one might almost call dazed. When he takes that first bite, the emotion that swells is not gratitude or joy in tasting fruit for the first time in centuries. Instead, it love - the kind of love that evokes safety, belonging, peace.

The man does not look pleased or comforted at such a feeling. Instead, he freezes, the contorted look on his face suggesting he does not know what to feel.

PLUM 🍎 A plum - or what he thinks must be a plum - draws his attention. It is warm and seems almost to glow with the sunlight. For a moment he admires it and, finally, sinks his teeth into it. The taste he might only describe as sumptuous, the sweetness coating his tongue. With each indulgent bite, a strange sensation grows. Isn't there someone...?

He turns, gaze drifting over the figures that he shares the orchard with. Then- yes, that person. He walks slow, crossing through rows of trees, moving with a mindless purpose. The pit forgotten on the ground behind him, he savors the little left on his fingertips. Finally, he stops before one of the other visitors. Yes. This person.

Behind the mask he has yet to truly register, he stares. The juice of the plum, sticky with sugar, lingers on full lips, glistening and staining them a dark pink. He reaches not only to take a hand, but to cradle it in both of his, to turn wrist and palm and touch each curve and line of it.

everything we love resets.  ∞    

The scene around him is at once strange and familiar. The decay is different, but it is still decay. Above him - behind him? - a voice commands him. The mask on his face is suddenly heavy, constricting. Must he know only confinement and restriction? Something begins to shift, then.

Those also with the misfortune of being in this rotted landscape will find a man on his knees, clutching at his face and clawing at the mask that surely must be the cause. At first, only he changes: his skin grows paler still, then his limbs becomes altogether transparent, only to become visible again in fits and starts, like the flicker of a guttering candle flame. Then, the landscape itself changes, bleeding outward: coarse sand and marble pillars that were surely once grand, but have long been reduced to rubble. Scents and sounds out of place cut sharply in and out; some familiar to him, some familiar to those nearby. He groans with a voice his own, and a voice that is not.

He notices nothing but his own agony - the pain is not a blade, but suffocation, leaving himself bereft of all sense but that of struggling: struggling to breathe, to remember, to be. He is a man who needs help - or a man that provides an unaware target.

EMP post for reference/plotting/etc.! / character info

citrus

[richesse]

[ He’s not the only one left reeling. Biting into the fruit—why did she even do it?—fills her with a sense of longing love that she…

She spits it out. ]

How dreadful. … you don’t look as if you feel much better.

Lortel Kehelland | The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide

[richesse]

[ I. you can thread the needle ]

[ Lortel will wander amongst the trees, fingers barely alighting on fruits and branches. She seems to be humming lightly to herself, glancing at this fruit and that.

Eventually she’ll approach you—her hands, now holding fruits, are hidden behind her back. She smiles coyly and says: ]

Left or right?

[ II. tethering/the network ]

[ How strange, this odd mental … sensation. Connection? Lortel whispers across it, in a voice no louder than your thoughts. ]

What’s your deepest, darkest secret?

[ III. everything we love resets ]

[ If the transformation is painful, she does not show it. If she hates it, if she’s frightened, if she wants anything but this—she does not show it.

Burning blood and cool wisps of magic fill her veins. And with them come gleaming eyes and a set of animalic features: a fluffy fox tail and curious, fox-like ears that swivel this way and that.

Looking over her shoulder, touching her hair, she sighs. ]

I’m sure it could be worse. What a strange dream I’m having…

[ ooc; feel free to wildcard your own prompt or plot with me at heartfuls! ]

2

[sadpoem]

[Why does the question rattle him so? Sunny's mind seems to stutter, anxiety rapidly raising, cresting, then all at once disappearing, giving way to nothing more than black radio static.

[What a curious response...]

verso | clair obscur: expedition 33

[versorecto]

[ ooc: verso is from act 3, i've done my best to avoid SPOILERS for the starters but they will likely come up in threading and i'll warn for spoilers using subject lines and cuts. if you want to avoid spoilers when interacting with him lmk, i'll do my best, probably by remaining EXCEEDINGLY VAGUE. ]

YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE;

[ The sky splits open, the moon fissures and cracks, and Verso feels himself somehow falling through -- and waking up somewhere else. His dreams so often recur, endless nightmares and memories that haunt him whether or not they're really his, and this is different -- feels somehow like not-quite-a-dream and maybe something else, something he doesn't understand. He's not alone, here, there are others waking, and wherever they are is almost peaceful, except there's a mask closed tight around his face and if he thinks about it too much he feels a little like he can't breathe.

But then the thought fades, and he can breathe again. The mask doesn't fade. There's just a voice on the wind, a low hum he can't place, and it pulls him towards the rows and rows of trees. Something compels him to reach up, to a branch hanging low and heavy with fruit, his fingers closing around some strange pearlescent orb that doesn't feel like it should be growing naturally from any tree.

And yet -- he takes it. It feels cool to the touch, its surface wet and slick, like a pearl plucked from the ocean. And when he lifts it to his mouth, his teeth break through into something sweet, and --

For a moment, for Verso and whoever might be beside him, there's nothing. Everything goes still. Nothing but silence, all other sound poured away. Nothing hurts, and nothing aches. Its a tiny, flickering moment of all-encompassing oblivion, and somewhere in it a faint murmuring of a hundred voices, the sound of an entire city alive with laughter.

It passes. Sound returns. Verso has dropped the half-bitten fruit to the ground, and it rolls towards the foot of whoever's standing beside him. He takes a moment to notice. ]

Putain -- Sorry. Let me -- [ He fumbles slightly when he reaches for it. Behind his voice, there's a sense of panic that's a bit too high-strung for a moment of clumsiness. ]

THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES;

[ This feels like walking a nightmare that isn't quite his own, half-remembered and dazed, choking on blood and the smell of smoke. Everything feels wrong, off-kilter and strange. It reminds him of the ruins across the Continent that feel like dreamlike remnants of the old world swallowed in paint and ink. But there's all sorts of things he doesn't recognize, blended in with things he swears he does. Scattered red-white flower petals. The remnants of a broken-down piano.

He reaches for it -- and it feels solid, real under his fingers. The fallboard, when he lifts it from the keys, is lined with soft felt. And when he reaches for one of the keys, just a gentle touch, not enough to press the note --

-- He hears something, a whispered name, sees a flicker of something he definitely knows. The response is sudden and almost violent, Verso slamming his hands down and causing a mess of discordant piano notes, scrambling away, the fallboard falling shut even as the notes continue to ring out in the strange space.

He stares around, wide-eyed, and. Uh. Did someone just see him do that? ]

-- Sorry. I just -- [ What was that? What was this place? He looks at the piano again, still half-buried in the field. It has markings he remembers, scars and imperfections he knows. This place . . . It's in him. In his thoughts. It's pulling them out. He hates it. ]

EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH;

[ The nightmare isn't ending and Verso isn't waking up, but this, at least, is something he feels like he almost knows. Everything in him screams to tip his head back and gaze upon Her in the sky, but somehow, bone-deep, he knows. Once he does, everything will fall apart. Once he does, he might not even have enough thoughts left to know regret.

( And somewhere, he wonders, would that be worth it -- ? )

The creatures around him, of all things, keep him grounded. It is easier to focus on these things, creatures with their heads split into mouths and blooming fungus from their skins. Some of them almost look like nevrons, painted in blues and reds, but they're not right -- but he knows how to fight. Some of them just attack in ways he doesn't understand, that he can't just fend off with the sword-and-dagger gleaming in his hands, words that crawl into his thoughts and try to force his eyes upward. And its somewhere in there, desperate to get away from something that was whispering into his thoughts, that he manages to do something he didn't realize he could do. Cloaking himself in some magic he doesn't understand, the creatures suddenly moving on.

He doesn't understand it. But there's no time to stop or think, which is for the best. He keeps his eyes trained low, and when he sees someone else, being set upon by those strange things or otherwise -- he reaches for them, grabbing by the arm or shoulder, pulling them down until they're both wrapped in the illusion that he's somehow made. ]

-- Whatever you do, keep down.

NETWORK;

[ This doesn't feel right. This haze of something pulling at his mind and his thoughts. It feels like it's getting in, but not quite getting in, and it definitely feels like if he pushes, he'd be reaching out -- ]

What is this?

[ -- Like that. A voice. His own voice, he'd heard it in his head. Something is wrong, and he feels like whatever he just called out to -- that he might hear something back. ]

Can you hear me? What are you?

[ There is a sense barely-restrained panic in that voice. He doesn't like the idea that something might be able to hear what's in his head. ]

WILDCARD;

[ happy to write specific starters for fruits in the orchard or any other ideas, just hit me up (pm / dragonpunch)! ]

( you can thread the needle )

[offseers]

[ noah dips down to pick it up. he holds it out politely. unphased. he doesn't need to know. he knows what he sees. he is, after all, an offseer. ]

It's all right. Take a moment.

Nymnar Gloomstrider | TTRPG OC (Pathfinder 2E)

[spiritmonger]

OOC: If you prefer brackets, have at ye. I'll match you. Pick whatever fruit sounds most fun with the first prompt if you opt to pressure him to try something.

i. threading needles
Nymnar took the orchard in with quiet regard. He'd been imprisoned for the past nineteen years, and now he felt as if he were in an oil painting. The orchard stretched further than his eyes could see, the horizon wasn't as he remembered, but he couldn't remember what the sky looked like - of the Universe or of his home. The trees didn't look as he remembered, though the most he recalled of the trees of the Universe was in passing as he wove through their shadows. He recalled his shadow having fun crinkling fallen leaves. And he knew the fruit wasn't right - perhaps from Elysium? Heaven? There are others here, too, and he regards them with the same pensive reserve as he regarded the landscape before him, the glass tears hanging from near impressionist branches.

Nymnar, for his part, looked as if the color had been bleached out of him. His skin was pale and white, and his hair looked as if it belonged here with the same gentle shimmer to it as the trees. He was thin - too thin - and there were moments parts of him seemed to almost flicker out of existance - fast enough that you could gaslight yourself into thinking you just imagined it. His shadow never matched what he was doing, and there were times you could even see it move despite his almost statue-esque posture.

"Curious fruit," he said calmly to someone nearby to him. He had a faint Slovenian accent when he spoke. "I wonder if they are safe to eat." His gaze stayed fixated on the fruit, lazily shifting from one to another with a curious boredom.

ii. daylight recedes
It is a strange feeling, being here in this half-remembered dream. He had been eighteen when he crossed planes, eighteen when he was put in a cell. What was there for him to even find here when he'd spent more of his life in prison than out? It was peaceful here, but not happy.

He walked quietly, his feet not making a sound as he passed over the grass, his shadow running hands over the ashen grass as if it could carress it. Nymnar found himself looking over the objects and one caught his interest - a rare feat indeed - and he reached out to feel it. He stopped and pulled away when a name was whispered in his ear, glancing back by habit to see who owned the voice, to find nobody. He did not recoil, but pulled away as he looked upon the object: a small glass bottle just large enough to fit three teeth, a delicate silver chain wrapped around the top and sealed into place with melted silver.

He did not recoil away from it, but his hesitation and the way he pulled back seemed to speak for him.

iii. even when we run with death
(OOC: this is what this prompt is)

The sky splits open like the flesh of a corpse turning into one of his thrall, but the sky bleeds instead of becoming a ghost. The moon looks like a tooth ripped out of rotted jaw, except it was he that was supposed to be bleeding, not it. And the creatures - was that what he was to become? For the first time in a very long time, Nymnar's cool demeanor shattered and he felt horror on his face. Even his shadow - darker than the blackest of blacks in this setting - was frazzled, trying to detach itself from its master and run.

He reached for his magic, trying to find his dirge and tune into it. He wanted to raise... Something, anything, to throw toward these hellish creatures that were once people, but nothing came. Instead, he saw another version of himself flicker into existance and sprint off in a direction, temporarily pulling the attention of the beasts as they chased after it. He looked at his hand in surprise, confused.

He would take it, however, as he turned to go in the exact opposite direction.

iv. wildcard
(OOC: If you have something else that speaks to you, I'd be happy to explore it! I'm most active on discord at coopyey, but I also use plurk at coopyey. I'm still working on it as of posting, but here's his about info. It should be done pretty soon!!)

iii. even when we run with death

[descendre_encendres]

She, too, had been running from these creatures. Without a weapon, without her rapier, she had few defenses. When she finds the creatures running and the man now coming toward her she stalls, puzzled.

"How did you do that?"

Her eyes glance back through her mask at the creatures that were trailing her who also seem to have taken the decoy to heart. There's a relief of a sigh, a catch of her breath, finally. She's a good runner, but it helps when there's a destination to reach. Here? Here, it feels endless.

Cellinia Texas | Arknights

[omertosa]

i. thread the needle

[A nightmare giving way to a dream, surreal in how unlike a dream it’s starting to feel. It doesn’t take long to realize that it’s because it may just be something much more than that.

The orchard stirs a tangled knot of emotions in Texas that she’d much prefer not to examine. The subtle weight of it in her chest can be felt even as she begins to stroll beneath the golden canopy, avoiding at first any contact with the other masked figures as she takes in the serene beauty of the space. It is a space just begging for one to relax, set aside their burdens, and yet she can’t shake the feeling of regarding it all with a wary eye.

But she does eventually join another beneath one of the fruit-laden trees. You find the quiet presence of a dark-haired woman stepping up beside you, a pair of lupine ears atop her head and a tail at her rear to match. She reaches for a fruit, lets fingers brush against its smooth, slick surface for just a moment before pulling her hand back. Then she instead glances sidelong at you, and in particular the fruit that may be in your own hand.]

Is it any good?

ii. daylight recedes

[The illusions of peace and respectability eventually fall away, as they always do.

The landscape sheds the brightness of the orchard for something much more somber, and Texas takes it all in with wandering eyes. There is a slight tenseness in her shoulders that betrays the ease with which she explores the new space, stepping carefully over the scattered remnants of civilization littering the field. Cracked and empty wine bottles, the hilt of a dagger rusted to uselessness, broken shards of vinyl records. Each offers a temptation to reach for that she abstains from for the moment; something else has a more solid hold on her attention.

With a languid pace, she follows the shrouded figure in the distance, but the gap between them remains all the same. Her displeasure is eventually evident in the downturn of her lips visible beneath that peculiar mask, still present even as she does a slight double-take when she realizes she’s inadvertently fallen into step alongside someone else. She slows, her attention now more firmly on them, but motions with a hand toward the strange figure in the distance.]

That one doesn’t seem like the rest of us.

[The subtle pull of that the presence has says as much. Have they also noticed?]

iii. run with death - cw: body horror, fungal infections, potentially violence

[Anyone who crossed paths with the lupo woman prior to the changes that have begun to wrack each and every one of them might notice that the quiet restraint she’s carried herself with thus far suddenly seems a little absent. There’s something unsettled in her in the aftermath of it, and it doesn’t stem solely from being rattled by initial transformation. Senses are keener, sights and smells standing out much more starkly than they should have any right to be. But it’s a fitting compliment to the claws now tipping each of her fingers and the dark fur newly sprouting from those hands to creep up her arms, a match to the lupine ears and tail she was born with.

It leaves her feeling antsy and unmoored, compelled to move and struggling to put the sickly call of the moon above into the back of her mind.

But there isn’t much luxury to dwell on it. The freshly awakened dreamers here aren’t the only things wandering these fields. Ahead there is a twisted creature that reaches up to knee height moving with a feral unsteadiness, tendrils twisting from its sides and its face malformed into something caught between floral and fungal that blossoms further along its back, a row of sharp teeth the only indication of its mouth. Its head tilts back for a moment as it gives a shrieking cry.

As you step into the clearing with her, she puts a hand up to block your path momentarily, glancing your way for a fleeting moment before motioning with a tilt of her head toward the braying creature.]

There’s more of them, not far out.

[A warning. It will be dangerous to linger here for much longer.

And yet: Texas shows no signs of preparing to flee herself, eyes instead locked on the misshapen creature with an almost predatory glint.]

iv. Wildcard

[I’m down to roll with just about anything. Feel free to toss more object interactions in the second prompt or token/offering shenanigans later on, or whatever you heart desires. If you’d like me to whip up something more tailored, you’re welcome to DM me.]

i. thread the needle

[descendre_encendres]

[The fruit in her own hand already has a bite in it, the blood orange. She looks at the one beside her and her strange appearance. She wonders if the ears are real, a comment she keeps to herself, but might be heard nonetheless thanks to the fruit.]

It's fine, it just feels-

[Weird. She thinks. Her sentence again left unfinished.]

noah | xenoblade 3

[offseers]

( i. you can thread the needle — fig )

[ noah doesn't know anything about fruit. especially these kind. they don't resemble the glitter radishes or the spongy spuds. manana would know. taion would know. but he is here, by himself. it leaves him strangely bereft. even as a soldier, he was never alone. he was always with someone. by his side, in front, behind him. the loneliness that claws at him is an old terror now realized.

perhaps that's why he impulsively reaches out for the fig to take a bite. feels the hunger for something, anything to satiate him. to banish the cold that is seeping in. and then he sees — her

glowing as she had, the last time he saw her. the little motes of light rising into the sky. she wasn't looking at him, simply seated on the ground. except she turns her head and noah can feel the horror and pain rise within himself, his throat choked as she says and he wants her to stop, stop, don't say it.

but her words are inaudible and she vanishes from sight. noah presses his hands to his face, trying to quieten his pain. ]

Mio.

( ii. the daylight recedes )

[ this was . . . fascinating.

some of these objects prick at his memory. city-folk with their books. bouquets that smelled similarly to the fields of colony mud. what had they called it? the bed of woes and wishes. napkins that city-folk use in the canteens. but everything had an air of richness, long faded. these were things of the past. who have outlived everyone noah could ever know. how old were they? ten years? twenty years? or like guernica was, at the incredulous age of sixty.

so noah is careful. even oddly respectful of every object as he observes them all with an odd, touching innocence. finally he stops at the record player, perplexed. ]

What's this one?

( iii. wildcard )

[ open to the other prompts/other fruit as well! feel free to pm this journal or hit me up at timmtams ]

[richesse]

Who is Mio?

[ peering into his face, mask or no, with a slight smile ]

Ignis Scientia | FFXV

[shatteredlenses]

(Blanket CW: FFXV Spoilers, mention of burns, lost vision/blindness, scarring, sacrificing for another, and death.)


I: You Can Thread the Needle:

[He'd followed the sound of water. Really, that was the only way Ignis could explain how he managed to get here, sitting on the edge of a fountain despite the fact he couldn't see anything and had no idea of what his surroundings were. The water was something familiar because when he'd passed out, he was in Altissia, a city built on the water.

This was not Altissia, though any time he started to figure out exactly what it was, it seemed the setting changed. First the rustling of leaves and the smell of fruit had made Ignis think of an orchard, but those things had faded as he'd neared the fountain. Now things were quiet and calm (deceptively, he can't help but think) aside from the sound of water. The first drink he'd taken had been more of a bodily need than anything. Ignis had no idea how long it had been since he'd finally given into the pain left by the Ring's magical power burning through him and woke up here, but his body needed to replace what had been lost. It was only on the second and then the third drinks that he noticed a return of some of the clarity he thought he'd left shattered along with his body in Altissia.

Want? What did he want? Had he not given all he had to the Lucii in order to get what he wanted before coming here? He had to protect Noctis from the Chancellor at any cost, so he had given all the Lucii asked for and now he sat here in darkness because of it, the only scraps of the clarity he longed for this fountain and the odd whispers he seems to hear off and on.

Want? Well, Ignis supposes if he makes himself stop tearing everything apart to its smallest detail to examine it, what he wants is what he's always wanted. That one presence that has been the stable center of his life since he was 6 years old.]

Noctis...


II: The Daylight Recedes:

[As much as Ignis may want to stay with the only source of clarity he's found in this place, eventually he starts to feel a pull away from the fountain. What it is, he's not sure, but if he follows though things logically, it makes sense he has to move. Staying put won't get him out of this place and back to Noctis. It won't get him back to Gladiolus or Prompto either, and his disappearance would have left them all frantic, especially after finding him in the state they did. No, he has to move even though his body aches with the coldness that had settled into his bones once the power of the Lucii had receded. Oddly, that ache is stronger than the pain he should be feeling from his burns and damaged eyes. Waking up with the blindfold on had been odd, but now he is rather grateful it's there. It keeps him from feeling how bad the damage to his face is. Really, he's not ready to deal with it yet, so Ignis picks the next best distraction there is; he begins to walk, slowly following the pull and using it to guide him since his eyes cannot.

His path is surprisingly easy for a man so newly blinded, and he can't help but wonder if Fate is somehow tied into all of this. Fate isn't new to him. He's spent too much time with Noctis, the Chosen King, for the idea of Fate or Prophecy to throw him off. This is a very different kind of Fate, though. It's distant, but also guides almost too much. After all, how else can he explain a blind man somehow finding a single item in an unfamiliar landscape?

A single familiar item.

It's his uncle's pocket watch. How it can be here, Ignis has no idea. It should be with his uncle, wherever the man had fallen while defending the king. Yet it is here, in his hands, as smooth and intricate as he remembers it being from when he played with it as a child. The Scientias as a family were very loyal to the royal line and as a result, there was almost always one serving some advisory role to the king. Granted, there were some generations where the special clarity of vision that seemed to be the family's special gift just didn't show up, but they were rare. His uncle had always been proud to be the first Scientia to return to the king's service after one such break. He would never have left the king's side, even if that did mean his death.

Ignis takes a deep breath squeezing the watch tightly in his hand for a moment. He never had time to mourn his uncle's passing. Not when Insomnia's fall and the king's death meant that Noctis was now king of a fallen country that they needed to reclaim. If they could manage to stay alive that is.

The breath slowly slips from Ignis' mouth as he runs a finger over the top of the watch and then returns it to where he found it. It's not real. It can't be, but the memories it's brought up are, and Ignis will contemplate them more later once he gets to wherever it is this pull is leading him.

Perhaps then, he will even mourn.]


III: Even When We Run With Death (Looking at Token: Chronomancer for Ignis):

[When the pain starts, it's both familiar and utterly foreign which makes it all the harder to deal with. It's like ice cold liquid something is flowing into the paths the power of the Lucii burned into him, fitting themselves into the channels and making them their own. If Ignis could unwrap his arms from around himself, they would probably be shaking much to his embarrassment. What is this? Had he not been changed enough by what the Lucii took from him? Why now does it seems as if his very being is being remolded into something else?

Between one breath and the next there is a pause, almost as if time stops. The pain eases for just a moment and then flares back to life. Ignis doesn't notice it at first, but as the cycle continues, he begins to ride the rhythm. It gives him a sense of control. False, perhaps, but it's still something, and he desperately needs something to cling to before he drowns like he so nearly did more than once in Altissia.

Then the flashes start. A snippet of...this world? A flash of a person approaching. A hand outstretched.]

Don't.

[It's a command. Oddly slowed and speed at the same time. The idea of someone touching him right now makes Ignis want to scream. It feels as if his skin is shifting, changing, tightening and loosening all at the same time.

No. Please. Whoever you are. Don't touch me! I cannot bear anymore!]

iii.

[richesse]

I wasn’t going to.

[ She never reached for him at all—but she’s seen weirder things. Whatever apparition he saw must have frightened him.

And why wouldn’t it? She has a tail now, and receiving it was quite an ordeal.

Though he can’t see it, her ears—that is, her brand new fox ears—flick. Forward and back. ]

What did you just do?

[ she is not one to be lightly bossed around. worse, he’d done … something. some kind of magic. Dinner even realize? ]

Yun Ruhong | TTRPG OC (D&D 5E)

[hongtian]

i. prelude

[ This is not a dream that Ruhong has ever head, because Ruhong does not dream.

Does not and should not, which means only that this can be real. Ruhong stares at the golden canopy, entranced from where she is lying in the grass, her armor shod to the ground beside her but three swords within an arms-reach of her right side. Warmth, longing, hunger—she contemplates all of these and stretches out an arm above her as though to grasp the light trying with all its might to peek through the scattered leaves.

She is no stranger to being shunted to other planes; nor is she a stranger to promises of fulfillment. Something seems wrong, she thinks, deep in the back of her mind. The darkness. The promises. The beckoning in her mind.

Ruhong is very familiar with all of these. ]

Which is more terrifying? [ Her voice is calm, quiet—dazed. ] That this is real? Or that it could be the first dream I have ever had?

ii. thread the needle

[ The thing is—Ruhong is always hungry.

She can feel him, that shimmer of ruby light that pulses deep within her inner core, the part of her soul that is as much her salvation as it is her downfall. Despite every screaming instinct (dulled within her) not to eat, Ruhong knows she will. He is hungry; they are one and the same, so she is hungry. And she will eat.

Ruhong has never been very good at holding back.

So she plucks, and she bites, licking the juice from her lips, and she bites again and tries another. For a moment, from the silver fruit, Ruhong shines with glittering ruby wings and scales; from the fig (which makes her drop the fruit) a harsh whisper and a moment—Ruhong swears—of a blond man who ducks behind the tree and drops a journal that vanishes when she approaches; and when she bites the plum, she hears another approaching and turns to offer the rest to them. ]

It's only a plum, not a peach. But bitten nonetheless, if those are the kinds of stories you enjoy.

iii. even when we run with death

[ As the world screams, so does Ruhong. ]

You will look upon me! [ She snarls back in a language guttural and primal, one that rips from her throat as though it forces its way through. Ruhong is covered in blood and viscera, her armor no longer pristine and a sword dripping bloody in her grip. ] You brought me here! You invite the Turning of the Ages, the inevitable downfall that I—

[ She doesn't finish the sentence. A terrible creature is once again upon her, and Ruhong strikes, jerking her blade sideways as it flashes with gold and ruby light, a furious, half-crazed laugh falling from her tongue. As she rips it in half, she comes face-to-face with a new figure as she bites out: ]

You have never seen beauty like il-Yannah!

( ooc: i have not rp'd in YEARS and so i'm still mid-setup of icons/about/journal etc. please bear with me and feel free to reach out (dm or aerolith) if you have questions! )

iii

[dethangel]

Wowee...

[Toki holds his hands up in front of himself in an attempt at a placating gesture, frozen to the spot. He knows he looks pretty bad right now, the deathly pallor of a corpse having overtaken him at some point thanks to... whatever this is, but if ever there was a wrong place at a wrong time, right behind a creature somebody just shredded is definitely it.]

Uh... I'm not with that guy!

[He holds his hands up a little higher, as if that'll make it obvious.]

onni hotakainen | stand still stay silent

[scowlish]

You Can Thread the Needle

[It feels familiar, but Onni has never dreamed before. It isn't his dreamspace, comfortable and safe, where he can rest in peace, it's something else entirely, and yet, he remembers going to sleep in the inn, safe at home, in civilization. But there it is, a broken moon, an approaching wave, and then he's subsumed in the oncoming wave, dark and cold and this...this is familiar.

He feels himself floating there in the darkness of the water, and wonders for a moment if he's in Tuonela again, but the voice he hears isn't that of the Swan, no, he knows the voice of the Swan, and the Swan speaks in Finnish - this voice...he can tell it isn't speaking his language, and yet he can understand. Could it be Tuoni herself?

Silently, he accepts this, every instinct screaming that he shouldn't.

But the darkness is absolute, he can't see the sleeping forms of the deceased, safely encased and floating in the water around him. And then it recedes, and he sits up in a new place entirely. It's warm, warmer than he's used to, and the trees are lush and full of fruit. He's seeing it through the eyes of a mask, and his hand comes up to brush the smooth painted surface of the thing, making a low grumbling hum in his throat. It's surreal, strange, like being pulled into the wrong dreamspace, but it feels somehow even more foreign than that. Underlying the calm that's suffused him, he can feel a familiar panic start to stir, but he suppresses it for now.

There are others nearby in masks, he wonders if his own looks like that, but is soon distracted by the sight of a small, onion-shaped fruit he's never seen before dangling on a branch, and he lifts his hand to pick it, almost without thinking. After studying it for a moment - the translucent skin, the vibrant flesh inside - he takes a bite, and the taste floods his mouth. He's never tasted anything like it, and he makes a small noise in his throat, something like surprise.

A few moments later, a small, glowing bird, fat and fluffy, appears beside him. Eyes wide, he lifts his hand to her. She lands on his finger, and he looks at her in wonder as he continues to walk through the orchard. She doesn't speak, but she moves a little, fluttering her wings and puffing up and turning her head back and forth.

Accompanied by the little bird floating near his shoulder, Onni makes his way over to one of the fruit trees that has relatively straight branches. Choosing the most sturdy one that he thinks he can break, he starts to bend it, mouth set in a straight line behind his mask, focused on the task. Once he's done, he won't be able to use the branch as a spear, because he has nothing to sharpen it with, but the ragged end might do some damage, and it could be used as a club. It doesn't feel right to be outdoors outside of a town without a weapon.

He's focused enough that he doesn't notice when someone approaches to see what he's doing, and jumps slightly when he becomes aware of their presence, unused to not being alone when he sleeps, still.]

Ah! Who are you?

The Daylight Recedes

[It isn't like the ruins back home. There are, of course, some things that are familiar - broken furniture, half-ruined structures, discarded items that are evidence of life having been lived here before. But it's more sporadic, not concentrated to areas people had obviously been living before some catastrophe.

It's also not the forest he's used to. The environment feels alien without trees everywhere, interspersed with lakes. Eyes flicking this way and that, Onni holds his broken branch at the ready. The bird, Tuuri, is long gone now, and he feels the loss of her keenly, exposed from every side as he is.

Pausing, he leans down to touch a framed photo, the glass broken, his breath catching in his throat, but when he pulls it free from a tangle of grass, the people in the picture are unfamiliar. For just a moment, he'd expected a photo of him and his sister and cousin, but...

It had just seemed so familiar.

Frowning, he lifts his head and looks at that figure in the distance. He can feel the pull of that figure, can feel the desire built in him to follow that figure into the future. As if that's the right way to go. He isn't sure he trusts it. Glancing around, he notices another of those people who've been around since he'd awakened.]

Do you think it's wise to follow?

Even When We Run With Death

[He hears them before he sees them, just like it had always been in the Silent World. The whispers, the chanting, the obscenities, the cries for help, he's heard them before. Or at least, something like them.

Brandishing the branch he'd broken from that tree earlier, he pauses, looking around him at this breaking world, the moon falling apart, the weeping red of the sky, and he wonders if the whatever world this is is ending. It's terrifying, he can feel the beating of his heart in his ears, can feel the panic clawing up his throat, the trembling in his hands clenched around wood still sticky with sap.

The monsters, though, the Beasts, the Trolls, those things that come towards them, though, they are familiar, if slightly different to what he's used to. He couldn't put a name to them like he can with most of those at home, but he recognizes the twisted forms, the plant life growing in matted fur, the fungus that breaks skin, the mutation, the decay. Kalma rules here too.

As the creatures approach, despite his fear, he steps forward, in front of anyone that might be nearby, and holds his branch at the ready, holding it like a spear.]

Stay behind me. Don't let them touch you, or get any fluid on you. We don't know yet if anyone is immune to these things.

The Murmur (Network)

[The message is telepathic, accompanied by sensations, fleeting but intense - the scent of the forest, of woodsmoke, the laughter of a loved one.]

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

[The 'voice' is almost monotone, mid-toned and a little gruff around the edges.]

Wildcard

Feel free to write me your own starter, or ask for one! I'm willing to try other fruits in the first prompt! If you want me to write something for you, hit me up at onlilypads, onlilypads at discord, or PM!

even when we run with death

[sadpoem]

[Sunny doesn't have to be told twice. He can't be sure when the other arrived, or whether or not he can be trusted, but he's holding one more weapon than Sunny has, and he's a thousand times more brave than Sunny ever could be.

[If this is all a dream, then it's become a nightmare, and he's not half as strong as he should be.

[Sunny cowers behind the man, hands half-covering his face, sweat beading up cold on his forehead. Without even so much as a steak knife, he's useless. That shame radiates through the murmur connecting them.]

Theseus | Hades

[deltastrike]

[Existence in the Underworld can be compared to a dream. It is a place where no one is born to or taken from, where Shades reenact simulacrums of what they remember for all eternity and even gods find themselves bound to the adamant shackle of unending work. But no Shade truly knows Sleep, while in Hades. They might know his unreliable servant Hypnos, or befallen a trick of the same, but it's an imitation of what they knew from life just like everything else a Shade experiences.

Theseus is certain that not only did he somehow fell asleep, he isn't waking up. After all, if he's awake, he still be back in Elysium.]

THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES
[Theseus did not drink from the Lethe when interned in the Underworld. He felt that every memory of his life was one worth honoring, every past glory and old story. A recollection not just remarkable, but pristine, possessing no dark spots which he wishes to rid himself of. But that's not to say he doesn't understand why people partake in the Lethe at all.

It's hardly rare for Theseus to be in a place ruined and waning, when those words can be used to describe much of landscape of Hades, somehow always ancient and persisting. But something about about this newly born field, fresh like newly tilled soil, draws him to thoughts that have not bothered him for a long time. They had eventually become distant from ever growing passage of time that got between the present and his life, but they never left him.

As for who comes to mind, the names and faces to the impressions, it's mostly relatives. Dear family which Theseus can't bring himself to face. Wives which . Princess.

This is unlike him. Theseus, still the type to beset on what's troubling him and aggrieve them back, wracks his mind trying to identify the cause why, when it dawns on him.]

If only one of these visages could be Asterius, that would be the first worthwhile personage to be found in this dream.

EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS (Offering: Daemon)
[If this is a dream, Theseus is going to be very cross at his subconscious when he wakes up.

His hands go to crown of his head, touching with his fingers what he can already feel as a living part of himself, fed with blood and nourished by his heartbeat. If he could see his reflection he could tell their color, jet black and almost glistening just from moonlight, but the last thing he wants is to see right now is himself. He might possibly want that even less than he wants others to see him like this.

It's long after the last bits stopped growing but Theseus remains frozen, never having got up from where he fell when the jagged, potent bone pain cut through him like a saw. He continues muttering while near motionless, hands kept over his face.]

No, no, no, this can't be happening...

[He starts to consider ideas which would seem maniacal if this is anything other than a mere dream...]

EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH (cw: self-harm)
[Pain traveling on the nerves reserved for the simplest and basest of impulses instantaneously alert Theseus to the realization that this was a regretful decision to make in this dream, nay, nightmare. The pain is more intense than the worst he could experience as a Shade or Human. But the hammer he took to the point of his horn stays on its course, announcing itself with the grotesque cracking, crunching of something collapsing and breaking inward.

The pain is too much to stay cognizant, overriding all thought for raw, violent instinct. In his mania Theseus is not much different from a walking disaster: terrifyingly thoughtless and awesomely strong.]

[He's not become a Host to Sleep, but maybe even more erratic with the unpredictability which he directs his aim to. Crowds of Hosts are cut down, but he doesn't notice them, or you.]

You all die now!

everything we love resets

[eepyrean]

[The truth is, Trina's barely handling things any better. She's been so badly rattled by the changes in her form that she can't stop to think too hard about them, lest she end up consumed by another panic attack.

So, instead, she does what she knows best: Tries to reach out to help people. If she can distract herself with that, she won't have to deal with the horrifying reality of what's happening inside her own self.]

Are you alright?

[Maybe an rhetorical question, but it's mostly just to get his attention.]

osamu dazai | bungo stray dogs beast

[unaliveyourself]

i. prelude cw: mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation

[He closes his eyes as he falls. One turns out the lights before going to bed, after all, and he has been waiting for this sleep a very, very long time. The darkness cloaks him, and he welcomes it gladly; the dizzying blur of the Yokohama streets disappears, snuffed out like dead stars, and there's something comforting about the encroaching water that replaces it, pulling up the covers to hold him snug. It's appropriate; the Greeks believed the river Styx to be the boundary of life and death. He doesn't have a coin for passage, but that's alright, isn't it? He's hardly ever counted as human to begin with.

A voice sings to him like a lullaby. Yes, he says, yes, he'll stay in the dark. He's finally finished, after all. His long journey -- four years the first time, and another six more -- has come to an end, and he is ready to rest.

But the darkness doesn't linger. He feels first the weight of other lives in his mind; it's nothing new for him, having borne the burden of too many possible worlds for too many years, but it nags at him like an alarm at one's bedside, blaring on repeat until you're forced to open your eyes and address it. He wakes to a garden. He wakes. His expression twists into something impatient.]

Ah. This isn't what I had in mind.

[He turns toward the nearest person, feeling a tug foreign and not.]

Who are you?

ii. thread the needle cw: grief, likely death mentions

[There is absolutely no good reason to eat the fruit. It's baked into every piece of literature he can think of, blaring forbidden with all but neon signage.

He plucks a pearlescent orb without hesitation, all the same. It's a mistake and the best choice he could've made, because the vision that surrounds him is the counter of an old rundown bar, a glass of whiskey, ice sphere bobbing up and down with the press of a finger, the sound of jazz in his ears -- but most importantly, there's a book laid out on the table. The title is obscured, but the byline isn't. It reads Sakunosuke Oda.

Dazai goes very still, breath stolen away as though he's found himself tossed out an airlock into the vacuum of space. He swallows tightly.]

We're to be the Lotus Eaters, mm? ...So be it.

[He raises the fruit to his mouth again, ready to prolong this vision as long as it will last.]

iii. the daylight recedes

[It's when he reaches for a worn out matchbook that he hears the voice whisper a name that is only spoken in his memories of another life. Odasaku, it calls.

(Don't call me Odasaku, he'd said, gun drawn and leveled right between his eyes. My enemies have no right to call me that.)

He follows it anyway, because he would always follow it. For one more time, one more chance, one more drink. Odasaku is alive and writing a novel and it's all he needs, all he wants. A good life is one in which you have someone you can say goodbye to, a farewell that makes you lament from the bottom of your heart. It's enough. He doesn't need any more, but he follows it, because he has to.

It isn't Odasaku, of course. Someone else is here, seeking the same thing -- one more time. One more chance. He laughs a little softly. It sounds like shattered china.]

"If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello." I suppose that's what this is meant to be.

iv. wildcard

[Write up your own prompt, or hit me up goodluckmodes to plot something ♥]

( iii )

[offseers]

You think you're brave?

[ the words slip out before noah can recall them. he bites his tongue, annoyed with himself. his mood is — well. it would be fair to say he doesn't feel like himself. the mask chafes his very heart. as if he looked in a mirror long enough, he'll see . . . he'll see.

ghosts and echoes. as an offseer, the departed are the departed. they don't speak. they have no voice. but here they were. in his shadow. in his wake.

no. he can't imagine anyone being brave enough. ]

JINX / arcane.

[opheliac]

Top-level contains spoilers of Arcane S2. Arcane is a mature content show. It deals with love, sex, death, mental illness, suicide attempts, classism, violence, terrorism, drinking, drugs, & language.

Jinx also suffers from mental illness. Such as the following: schizophrenia, hallucinations, PTSD, separation anxiety, & dissociation. These topics more than likely will happen in these prompts and threads.

i. ❝First, you made me a river, so I would have water.❞
▷ ᛗ PRELUDE | THE (MURMUR) NETWORK

[you will receive a telepathic message from a girl. a girl who sounds defeated, mournful, and broken. there's a lot of vulnerability, and although this connection is already a whisper, it's even smaller than the average. ]

Did I do it? Am I free? ...Did I make it out? Please... — Please tell me it's finally over.

ii. ❝Made for me a garden, so I would have Earth.❞
▷ ᛗ YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE

[since the last thing jinx could remember was curling her index finger along the pin of her explosive, this had to be the afterlife; it's the only sensible explanation. especially when a dream seemed to be recurring night after night without fail. because if a phenomenon were to happen this often, then it had to mean there's something more to it, something deeper.

there was ekko's voice too that she heard before this; she remembers seeing him... begging for her to wait. or at least... she believed so. it's been so hard to detect what's been real and what's been fiction for the last forty-eight hours. but he had told her that it was never too late to start over, to build a new life for herself — a new her. but is that possible for someone like her? a girl this damned, this jinxed? maybe it doesn't matter anymore, or at least, not in this new place(?).]

[although her body felt weighty, her skin was washed out and looked malnourished, her feet moved steadily towards the expected orchard. it's a little amazing that she was even stirring, given her current condition, but for some reason, the way the trunk glittered felt eerily mesmerizing, and the odd shapes of the hanging fruits made the cogs in her mind wheel with interest.

at first, she paid no mind to whoever else was nearby this tree and plucked a fig and a dark plum with great ease. the voices in her mind argue amongst themselves over what she should do with the produce; some suggest she should eat it right away, while the other half warn her to be cautious. still, her thumbs brush carefully along their layers, and she casts a gaze to her new counterpart.]

Hey... have you met God yet? I thought the big boss would show up and start babbling about junk and what we're supposed to do next. — Guess we gotta wing it, huh?

[a beat.]

Oooooor my brain is really having a joyride, and all of this is a result of being a loveable nutjob.

iii. ❝But I'm so lonely, so lonely.❞
▷ ᛗ WILDCARD

i really wanted to write the other prompts but got tired after working an 11-hour shift, and this is all i can pour out of myself, lol. so instead, if you are interested in EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH with jinx, feel free to toss up a starter. or if you want to do something else entirely, PM this journal, and we can talk about it! ╰(▔∀▔)╯

OOC; slighty outdated but here is info about jinx. if you wish to opt-out on specific topics, or this character/me completely in this TDM, my opt-out is HERE.

i - good with all CWs, sunny's can be found in his permissions' post <3

[sadpoem]

[Unsettling dialogue. Sunny wonders if the voice whispering is that of a nightmare, but he doesn't necessarily feel fear - not yet, anyway.

[It's sad. Sunny reflects her sorrow back through the murmur, not quite words, but emotion, tethered to a young, empathetic presence. To say that Sunny is soft spoken would be an understatement. Even through the these open mental channels, his "voice" doesn't quite make it through...

[But he's sorry. He doesn't know if it's over. He doesn't know if she's finally free. This is his dream, but it isn't like his usual. Whether this girl is a product of his mind, or merely also dreaming, it doesn't matter. He has no idea what may happen next. All he can do is try to comfort her. Who knows if he's any good at that now?

[He tries. Through the murmur, this silent network, he whispers comfort; he's here, she's not alone.

[There's more, too, though he doesn't quite realize it himself.

[He understands. That's all.]

St. Trina | Elden Ring

[eepyrean]

[I. YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE]

[Rooted in the Fissure, half-dead and only half a person, Trina wishes she could be surprised to feel encroachment into her realm. Sleep had always been a place of relief and quietude. Healing. At least, it was while she was overseeing it, imbued with Miquella's desire to help the afflicted.

This isn't that. For a moment, she wonders if this is what death looks like; an impossibility for a demigod in a world where death was sealed, at least under the vast majority of circumstances, but she is dying, and she knows it. Yet, that doesn't seem right either.

This isn't death. This isn't peaceful slumber. Then it must be the third option, and one that Trina still knows well: A nightmare. But not like any nightmare she's ever dealt with, that she's ever alleviated. There's something else to it.

When she awakes, it is to a paradise that is too golden to be real. She watched the age of the Erdtree fall during the Shattering, sometimes from the safety of Miquella's heart, sometimes on the front lines - she knew how shining it looked before things started to crumble to ruin.

Let me in, the voice said, and Trina feels a cold shock, a dread in her breast that she said no, but it came out as yes, and she couldn't control it.

No. No no.

It's an Outer God. It has to be. She's not sure why it's targeting her - she's only half an Empyrean, after all - but maybe it's because she's dying. Because she's weak. Because she doesn't have the warding of Unalloyed Gold to use anymore, because Miquella abandoned that pursuit when he wasn't satisfied with the results, and then abandoned her.

No. No no no no-]

No. [Her voice is small, tinny, distant to her. She's slow to stand, to join the fray. Trina has always woken slowly, because she's almost always drifting between the waking world and dreams naturally.

She pushes herself to her feet, and still doesn't feel awake. So this is a dream. A dream.

But there are other people here, she realizes. People she doesn't recognize (or she does. She does?)

Dream fruit hangs rich and ripe, but the no is still on her lips, in the back of her mind.

She approaches whoever she sees first, drowsy, her voice scratchy and sleepy and small.]

No, I- wouldn't eat that.

[Most things in dreams are harmless. She doesn't think this is a dream. This is just a nightmare wearing gold.

She knows that well, too.]

[II. EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS]
ooc note: going to work so far between lightweaver, illusionist, and beastkin. cw for self-harm.

[She knew it. She knew it, she knew it, and as the dream fades into its true form, the gold peeling from the bark, the grass withering and dying, she stumbles to wakefulness. She's more alert now, and she is irritated.

You said yes, the voice taunts.]

I did no such thing. [Trina whispers back, not expecting the Thing to hear her or understand.

The mask is tight, now. Suffocating. She raises her hands and starts clawing at it, at the edges, until her purple nectarblood leaks from around the scratched edges.

She has to get out of here. She has to wake up. This is the nightmare's form, she thinks. The true form. She, Miquella - they'd never been worn as a puppet-suit by any Outer God. Not like Malenia, and not like Marika. Cursed, yes, but the Unalloyed had kept them away from being those things' skinsuits. The thought something is in her head now is so invasive, so violating.

She pries harder, claustrophobic panic rising in her chest in waves.

Sometimes the blood drips onto the ground, and little flowers sprout, bloom, wither, die.

Sometimes her eyes shine brighter than Grace, veins throbbing with golden light that contrasts with her violet color scheme.

And sometimes, she isn't a purple-haired girl. Sometimes she's a blonde boy, with braids in his hair, flickering over her image as illusion takes over and shows the truth of what she might well be.]

Agh, get out! Get out of me!

[Then, when she's exhausted by her outbursts, she curls down onto the ground, bringing her knees to her chest.] Miquella... help me...

[III. EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH]

[Saint Trina is not a fighter. She's never had to be. Sleep is meant to help, but it can also disable any attackers. She's never really needed to defend herself. If it ever got that bad she always had-

Well, help.

Problem: now she's cornered. The creatures shudder and they groan and they grin. Look at the moon, they say, but she already knows that is the Thing trying to wear her Empyrean flesh.

These... were probably people at some point she thinks. It makes her hesitate trying to kill them. They're afflicted, they're mad, they're not the enemy. They're exactly what she's been trying to help in the Lands Between. But... they're also baring down on her.

To the outside, she looks like a... surprisingly tall but still very notably young girl that is not fighting back. She probably looks more scared than she actually is, because this nightmare is finally starting to truly reveal its teeth, and all she's doing is walking backward away from them, refusing to defend herself.]

iii

[devilmind]

[ The Operator, meanwhile, has no such qualms about harming the afflicted—or killing them, if possible. In their golden eyes, the things are Infested—too far gone to save and only worthy of being put down. And the Operator is usually the one called upon for such an extermination—though, usually they are in a more impressive form. Still, when they see the creatures closing in on a young girl, they don't hesitate to race forward towards the fray.

Just as one of the afflicted reaches forward to grab at the girl, a golden discus of light suddenly crashes into the crowd, knocking a few of them over. ]

Here! [ The Operator shouts defiantly, trying to draw the creatures' attention. ] It's me you want, not her!

Malenia | Elden Ring

[bloodrot]

[I] Prelude

[ Most dreams afforded her some semblance of sight, but not this one. Perhaps if it had, it would have only been that more distressing.

The feeling of being submerged in water, while not ultimately terrifying, does cause Malenia some momentary panic. The voice and her immediate acquiescence only furthers it. When she was so accustomed to the constant presence of the god of rot beckoning her, tempting her, this new voice felt like just another to fight. ]

Yes...

[ The word comes out so easily, the part of her mind that was so easily swayed trying to forge relief in the midst of her panic. It takes her a moment of trying to find the will to struggle and fight to realize that something is pulling her. It’s a gentle pull that almost feels tangible.

The darkness fades away and the demigod cannot simply be still to soak in the warmth that surrounds her. Still frantic, she listens for threats that very clearly aren’t there while lifting her left hand to her face, fingers brushing against a blindfold.

After a moment or two, her breathing begins to slow. Giving in is so much easier than fighting, but she’s still skeptical. Slowly, she lets go in lieu of following the instinct to reach out to… what? She doesn’t quite understand. ]

Who are you?

Speak to me.


[II] You can thread the needle

[ Feeling a bit calmer, her attention is torn between the people there and the rustle of leaves. Even when she can’t see them, something feels strangely familiar. Similar to her twin brother’s presence when he entered a room or sat near her. The longing that follows this strange familiarity is curious.

Before she can think too much about it, her train of thought is interrupted when her foot hits something in the grass.

Bending down, she reaches for the dark plum, the warmth in her hand surprising her to the point that she hesitates before picking it up in earnest. She turns it over her hand, feeling along the surface, lifting it to her nose to see if it even has a scent.

Eating strange fruit in an even stranger place? What could possibly go wrong?

Giving into her curiosity, she takes a bite. The presumed sweetness isn’t there, replaced by her prior longing for connection, for touch, for companionship of any kind. It bursts forth with an intensity that she was not prepared for, as though every single moment of isolation and loneliness she has ever felt manifests into a need.

She drops the fruit, trying to ground herself and shake it off, but the feeling doesn’t ebb.

Her attention hones in on… someone. She isn’t even sure that she heard them talking, but she can feel them. ]

Forgive me, but… do I know you?

[ Between her blindness and feeling strangely isolated, please talk to me is the name of the game today. That’s it. That is her want.

Thanks, she hates it. ]


[III] Everything we love resets

[ With her emotions now very raw, waking up to the scent of stagnation causes her panic to resurface. Dripping wet from awakening in a pool of water, she scrambles to feet and stumbles out, clawing at her face against the sudden pressure of her blindfold.

The march to Caelid with her army had never been this silent and while the tension hung low over them for the upcoming battle, it never felt this heavy and wrong. Instead, this feels more like a nightmare, like so many she’s had before: Surrounded by rot and corpses while a voice beckons.

Was this it? Had her mind been overtaken despite her efforts to fight?

The blindfold won’t move, her flesh feels as though it’s crawling, every heartbeat chills her to the bone, and blood treks down the side of her face her nails had scraped. The jolts of shooting pain through her limbs is minimal in comparison to just how cold she feels and the overwhelming grief of losing a long-standing battle. She lowers herself down to her knees, her prosthetic hand gripping her sword that she uses to lean against. She grits her teeth against each jolt, trying to focus on breathing through it. Drops of rain begin darkening the dirt around her. Just when she feels as though she might drown in her emotions, a stream of water shoots from her left hand and rain picks up.

One burst and the area feels devoid of moisture when it already felt dry to begin with.

It’s the overall feeling that makes her pause, shivering and confused by the surge of a power that she has never known. She lifts her hand, her fingertips dripping as a smaller amount of water gathers in the center of her palm.

What is this? ]

ii.

[tache]

[ She isn't far from all of this, her eyes on the trees and the fruit, almost glaring at them. It's the kind of petulance one might expect from a child, but Lune's wariness has kept her alive these past several weeks, and it persists to keep her safe even now. But every attempt to rationalize herself into fully believing this place is an illusion, the people near her just shadows, something else layers atop that point to tell her...something else is amiss, and it would be foolish to dismiss it all out of hand.

A voice calls out nearby, and Lune turns to see a tall woman by one of the trees. There's an uncertainty about her, an undercurrent of tension, and Lune cants her head.

Her eyes fall on the fruit at the woman's feet. Merde.

Lune steps in her direction, bare feet soft on the ground as she goes, but Malenia will hear her; she's making no attempt to disguise her walking. ]

I don't recognize you, no.

[ Which doesn't mean anything, necessarily, but she's more concerned that she's partaken of something that could be poisonous. ]

Did you eat that? [ Please say no. ] Are you all right?

The Operator | Warframe

[devilmind]

i. prelude/thread the needle

[ The Operator has spent most of their life dreaming, but they don’t often dream like this.

Their dreams are rarely abstractions, for one thing. They sleepwalk in the body of another, spilling blood, stealing secrets, and the worlds they move through are exactly like the worlds they know, because they are—just seen through a Warframe’s eyes.

But this is not like that. The moon overhead is not Lua. The wave that had brought them here is not one they know. This is not the usual Dream.

They touch the mask on their face, unperturbed by its presence; they are used to being masked. If this isn’t the Dream they know, then it may be something new—perhaps a message or a distant cry, like the one they’d sensed from Umbra. Someone may need their help.

They survey their surroundings, a golden orchard with trees bearing unfamiliar fruit. ]

Hello? [ they call out, their voice, like their current body, that of a child. ] Is there anyone out there?

ii. the daylight recedes

[ The Operator is no stranger to ruins, but these ones aren’t like those they’ve explored before—nor like the ones they’ve created.

There are no buildings, for one thing. No crumbling walls or pillars, no grand edifices or dormant machines. There are only… things. And not even things that ought to be preserved. Fading flowers, inky napkins, discarded blankets; exposed to the elements, such things should have crumbled to dust ages ago.

Stranger still, some of these relics feel strangely familiar to the Operator—which, given how little they remember of their old life, shouldn’t be very likely at all. But here they are, staring at an old bed frame, feeling almost… nostalgic. Sorrowful.

They frown and reach for it, more to dispel the odd feeling than anything, but just as their fingers brush the rusted surface, a voice whispers in their ear…

’Hey, kiddo.’

The Operator flinches back, their head whipping from side-to-side in obvious panic. It isn’t there, of course. But someone else is.

They stare at the other person, golden eyes wide. ]

You didn’t hear that, [ they say, the tension in their voice fading to resignation. ] Did you?

iii. run with death

[ A new form. New abilities. The transformation had been more painful than the Operator is accustomed to—no easily slipping into another’s body with Transference—but their instinct for commanding new power is well-honed.

It means when they come upon someone being beset by malformed, tentacled creatures (Infested, is their first, disgusted thought), they have no hesitation in getting involved.

One moment, you are fighting off an arm around your neck, insistent fingers prying open your eyelids and forcing your head back. The next, if you’re perceptive, you may catch a glimpse out of the corner of your eye of something small and bright, like a spark on the wind. And then—the world explodes.

White light edged with gold engulfs you and your assailants, so bright you can almost hear it ringing in your ears. To say it’s blinding is an understatement—tears may stream from your eyes, the world reduced to a pale, undifferentiated blur. You may even hear your assailants, wailing in despair about at the beauty that has been stolen from them. They’re blind, too, at least for now.

And then, there is a voice, youthful and sharp in the distance. It cries out one piercing, urgent command: ]

Run!

iii

[merged]

[ Tendrils wrap tightly around Sharon's head, prying her eyes open and forcing her dull gaze skyward. She thrashes, but they’re far too strong. Desperately, she tries to summon fire, to burn the ground and the terrible creatures that hold her, but nothing comes. No flame. No shift. The world doesn't slip away into darkness. Something wants to respond, but it's not the power she's familiar with.

All she can see is the sky, an endless, suffocating red, and she weeps. All she’d wanted was to save her father, the same way he’d fought so hard to save her.

Then—light. Blinding. Scorching. She screams as it sears her vision, but the creatures recoil, and she’s free. She stumbles, falls, then scrambles away, not waiting for the voice that yells at her to run. She doesn’t need telling. She bolts, vision swimming, but slows as her sight clears, turning back to see the chaos she's left behind. And to help if her savior seems to need it. ]