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Entry tags:
- alien stage: ivan,
- alien stage: till,
- arcane: viktor,
- arknights: texas,
- event,
- fallout: cooper howard,
- ffxv: ignis scientia,
- hsr: aventurine,
- inception: arthur,
- jujutsu kaisen: megumi fushiguro,
- mod,
- oc: kalmiya longwillow,
- omori: sunny,
- outlast: miles upshur,
- rwby: ozpin,
- smtv: yuzuru atsuta,
- ssss: onni hotakainen,
- teasg: lortel kehelland,
- xenoblade chronicles: noah
CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT
EVENT: CALCUTTA
ᛗ I am caught, tangled in
( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )
You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.
You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.
Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.
The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.
And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.
You'd better get moving. Survive.
NOTES:
You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.
Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.
The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.
And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.
You'd better get moving. Survive.
NOTES:
• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.
• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.
• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.
ᛗ
And I wake, say your name
( content warnings: sensory distortion )
One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.
The Murmur is stirring.
A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.
You are not alone. You never were.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
The Murmur is stirring.
A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.
You are not alone. You never were.
NOTES:
• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.
• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.
ᛗ
Wrapped and quartered
( content warnings: body horror )
As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.
And then: the masks begin to thrum.
It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.
A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:
Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
And then: the masks begin to thrum.
It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.
A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:
Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.
NOTES:
• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.
• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.
ᛗ
Missing pieces find me
( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )
Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.
You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.
But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.
You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.
And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.
It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.
Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.
At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.
But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.
You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.
And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.
It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.
Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.
At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.
NOTES:
• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.
no subject
It was why he’d chosen to not be interested in a disengaged father’s cultural heritage, in the things that so obviously mattered to the unassimilated immigrant parent. It was why he’d answered every sentence addressed to him in French with an English reply his sophomore and junior years of high school. There had been arguments, also bilingual, but he hadn’t yielded until he just got tired of running a mental switchboard on his dad's custody days senior year.
Why should he lopsidedly care about what Matthieu Lavoie does?
There’s something else there, in what Toki says, and it’s familiarity that makes Freddie see it. He had come to America because there weren’t any family ties holding him in place, giving him a reason to stay, something to miss. Freddie had seen each parent once, before he shipped off to Iraq for that first tour. And he hadn’t felt any real sense of missing them, not like he got the feeling somebody from a normal family would. What was there to miss, really? It’s not like they’d be talking or seeing each other any less than their current pattern of occasional contact and forced family Christmases stateside. ]
Yeah. [ He’s not sure why he says what comes next, but he says it very casually. It’s a long-established fact of life, even if it’s not one he usually goes out of his way to share. But this is commiseration, to some degree. ] My parents didn’t really give enough of a shit to be upset about what I was into when I was growing up. I wasn’t crying my eyes out when I shipped off to Iraq or anything.
no subject
[He's a little surprised at himself, how casually he brings that up. This sort of thing used to be harder to even think about before the band's therapist had dragged it out of him, but Dr. Twinkletits is somehow really good at what he does. And now that he's got fresher scars, physical and mental, all that childhood stuff feels so far away.
Commiseration indeed. Sometimes it feels like Nathan's the big outlier he knows, with parents who actually like him. Running into other people like this just reinforces the feeling.]
Did you... did you find friends and stuff? To care? When you left?
[Toki had only been a teenager when he'd left the only place he'd ever known for a new country where he barely even knew the language (and still struggles with it to this day). He already misses his family, his real family, the ones that took him in and cared, even when they pretended not to, but... he's sure he'll see them again.]
no subject
But Toki only mentions it in passing, and certainly doesn’t belabor the point, so this might be the extent of his comfort with talking about it. At the very least, they don’t know each other well enough for it to be remotely acceptable for him to ask any questions about it, even if Freddie now finds himself sitting on several. Instead, he focuses on answering his questions. ]
Yeah. I did. I made some friends in college, [ even if none of them were lifelong friendships like people always talk about making ] and then when I got out of college I joined the military. Your unit becomes your family. You go through the shit together, and that’s a tighter bond than you’d ever form anywhere else. I met some real stand-up guys there.
[ It had filled a void. ]
no subject
Oh, like being in a band! [At least that's what it's like for him. Maybe it feels different for the others, who had been in different bands over the years before coming together, but for Toki, it's always been Dethklok. They're the brothers he'd never had. Sometimes they can be like parents, or like asshole friends, or more accurately something you can't necessarily map one to one onto real-world concepts.]
And you're all there for each other, even when you're not supposed to say you care.
cw nongraphic discussion of GI illness, IV mention
Freddie had cried, then. He doesn't remember all of it, just fragmented pieces that loosely aligned with the periodic ebbing of his fever, the spaces between shallow, unrestorative sleep. It wasn't much, just tears he felt run down in the direction of his ears from the outer corner of his eyes. He'd never felt so helpless—so pathetic. He'd never been in so much pain, with no obvious relief in sight, had never been in such agony that shame became a foreign concept that could no longer keep him from moaning with what little energy he had every time the pain surged through him anew like a wave violently crashing over a breakwater.
And they'd given him some kind of sedative through his IV line, a lot of it, now that he was medicated enough to stay clean and not risk choking on his own vomit in his sleep. He'd slept through the worst of it, the first night (and day) of actual rest he'd gotten in three days. He'd slept soundly enough to not feel the pain, and it had been mild when he awoke.
They didn't have to do that. They probably didn't, for most people. He's always sort of assumed someone saw the tears.
His CO had visited when he was coming to, and so had some of his buddies. There had been the inevitable jokes; he'd threatened to throw up on them. Nobody had actually said they were worried, that they cared—but they'd taken the time to step away from the barracks Playstation and whatever they were jacking off to to come and see him, and they'd asked how he was holding up. His mother hadn't cared nearly as much when he got the stomach flu in his freshman year in high school. She'd tried to play the assigned role of concerned mom, but it hadn't been real; she'd flagged; it was a pantomime. Everything about Iraq was real. ]
Yeah, exactly. It was nice. I think that's why a lot of people join. The camaraderie.
[ Feeling wanted. ]
no subject
Ultimately, there's no real point in speculating. There wasn't a prophecy about him off at war or whatever. He was always meant to join Dethklok. Still, sometimes you have to wonder about things.]
That's cool. It's... really good to have friends that you can hang out with and talk to about stuff.
[It really sucks that he hasn't run into anybody he knows, but he's doing a pretty good job being off on his own, considering what happened the last time he'd been separated from the rest of the band. And maybe he can make new friends in the meantime, like Freddie. It'll be fine.
After a few more moments of quiet contemplation, he glances back over.]
Nothing good over there yet?
cw MI stigma
[ He saw that on Orange Is the New Black back when it was first airing on Netflix. It's a rhetorical question, as evidenced by the fact that he sighs and pulls the protective grate he closed behind himself back open to rejoin Toki in the shelves of over-the-counters. He gives the low aisles a quick scan. His eyes fall on a pair of cut-to-size Dr. Scholl's. ]
Insoles might be helpful. Foot injury when you have to walk all over the place, you're fucked.
[ He grabs them, tosses them in the cart. There's some kind of freeze-off solution for plantar warts, too. He grabs that as well, then turns to Toki, noting wryly: ]
This is why you don't go barefoot in communal spaces.
no subject
So he glances over at a nearby aisle. There's makeup and stuff here, a lot of it spilled or smashed, but none of the available foundation is the pure white of the corpse paint he wears onstage. Not that he expects to do much in the way of performing here, but those are the things you think about sometimes. He drops a couple of intact containers of black eyeshadow into the cart with zero explanation anyway. Just in case.
All the foot stuff sounds pretty useful, and definitely not something he would have considered so much himself, so he simply nods as he peers around for more items. When he's done with the makeup aisle, he peers over at an endcap display. It's been picked over, but under a pile of scattered open boxes, he fishes out a bottle of multivitamins, marked down for clearance.]
Are these good? [he asks as he brings it over towards the cart.]
no subject
[ He’s pretty sure all they’re going to be able to find is packs of ramen, prepackaged snacks, sugarfree gummy bears. Empty calories, not anything with nutritive value, which could become an issue in the long run, especially with the utter lack of fruit and vegetables here. He’d never thought that scurvy would be a concern in his lifetime, but here they are.
Freddie gives the shelves one last scan. ]
Doesn’t seem like there’s much else. Ready to head out?
no subject
Yep. I think that's it.
[It's a shame they didn't find some kind of secret cache of really good drugs or something, but that's okay. They can always look for more later.]
I bet the next place'll have some cool stuff.
[If you say it like that, maybe it'll happen.]