sweetacres | All that bloodshed, crimson clover

Entry tags:

event

All that bloodshed, crimson clover

Characters Involved: All characters in the game
When: The month of February
What: A failed garden project and an unusual affliction
Where: Voddisson Park and the rest of Sweet Acres
Open/Closed: Game event thus open to all

Month Year Experiment

Event Questions | Full Navigation
Prompt One | Prompt Two
Image Descriptors
Left Image: Skeletal human torso and head covered in blood surrounded by roses against a black background.

Right Image: Chalk white human back with golden crack painted through the middle. Fingers holding the back of the neck against a white background.

Standard Introduction
We recommend reading this section if you are a brand new player to get a better understanding of game events. If you're an old hat, you can feel free to skip this section!

The majority of events are experiments created by Daisy. Daisy may drastically alter the setting of Sweet Acres or alter the physiology and psychology of characters to increase the stakes of an experiment. Even characters usually resistant to manipulation and persuasion will often feel heavily compelled to participate in events.

We encourage players to have fun with this: does your character feel threatened and get involved out of fear? Do they get involved without thinking twice about it? Do they feel pain through their Daze if they try to stay away from an event? Do their powers glitch as a punishment for not being involved? Some events will have specific consequences for avoiding prompts, but for the most part, ya'll get to have whatever brand of fun you want to have!

Characters can alleviate symptoms or escape situations more quickly or avoid them altogether with the use of their Grounding Item. Grounding Items should be used sparingly for the sake of maintaining the consistent mood of the overall game.

All character experiences are technically recorded through the Daze. Characters are being observed by an unseen Audience at all times - but especially during experiments. You can incorporate this into your scenes as well! Throw in a laugh track or audible gasping or have your character feel as though they are being watched! You don't have to ever acknowledge the Audience, but it certainly adds to another layer of terror! Audience members may offer assistance or resistance during certain experiments.

[ The Garden Project ]

Summary:

🌼 Content Warnings: Forced altered state of mind, relaxation, possible vine porn if u really dream hard enough, drowning, living plants, carnivorous plants, hallucinations, life energy/water being rapidly removed, possible forced/rapid weight loss

🌼 Daisy attempts to create a proper garden in Voddisson Park and manipulates characters to visit and admire her creation.

🌼 Daisy still sucks at creating organic life and therefore the Garden Project fails spectacularly. The Garden Project becomes an extreme test of survival.

🌼 But first, the flowers make you feel a bit as though you are drunk or tripping.

🌼 If your character has plant manipulation abilities, they may be able to control some of the plants at a time, but not all and it will require more of their energy than usual.

🌼 By the end of the month, between characters working together to destroy the Garden Project along with Daisy's intervention, the Garden Project will be scorched from Sweet Acres. Best luck another time, Daisy!

Toward the beginning of February, all characters will begin to feel greatly tempted to visit Voddisson Park at different intervals throughout the month. Even after they realize that Voddisson Park is probably the last place any sane person should want to visit.

In your defense, the park is a sight to behold. Even as you approach, you will notice the air absolutely teeming with the sweet, succulent aroma of mixed florals: fresh freesia, jasmine, lilies, roses, and more. There are bottom notes of musk and amber, the air soaked with warm inviting notes of vanilla. While it should be too much, it's somehow a perfect blend no matter how sensitive your nose might normally be.

It pulls you in, and like the scent, the flowers appear immaculate. They also don't seem to ascribe by the typical botany of our world. There are extraordinary trees of thick roses of every color, the blossoms the size of basketballs. Lilies grow several feet taller than the average person while walls of hydrangea seem to burst with buds.

The flowers seem to put everyone in a giddy mood, giggly and nearly drunk on the aroma and presence of the flowers. You may start to feel drugged, the world floating around you, your body warm and relaxed. Some characters may be more impacted by this than others (per player discretion).

This becomes a problem when the flowers begin to move on their own and your walk in the park suddenly becomes its own level of hell:

Thick Vines creep along the ground, wrapping around your ankles and wrists, or even your waist before yanking you up toward the trees. You may just get thrashed around rather violently, or have some of your clothes torn and scuffed up, or you may just be crushed by the vines' abnormal strength. Vines can be destroyed with strong metal and/or fire and/or ice.

Patches of Wet Mud are throughout the park, but you will want to avoid accidentally stepping in them. The moment you do, you will be suctioned downward, the mud clinging to you. The more you panic, the more you will sink. One must be entirely calm and then lean backward to get out of the mud pits. One can drown in these if they are not too careful. An effective means of combating mud is also ice.

Red Roses seem especially popular in this park. Daisy must have seen that they were a popular plant on most earth-adjacent planets! Except she seemed to miss something about the flowers because these flowers bloom in the presence of those who have red blood pumping through their veins. You will be tempted to get close, but when you do, the blooms will spread open and reveal a voracious, fanged mouth. Roses will snatch anyone up, crunching effortlessly through clothes and bone.

The roses seem to have insatiable appetites, feeding eagerly on prey, sometimes helped by the vines. The roses are surprisingly durable, seeming to repopulate like a hydra if you merely cut them down with blades. You will instead want to destroy them with fire or ice. Be careful! Once the roses get a taste for your blood, they will become even more ravenous.

Poppies are in abundance and seem, at a glance, to be the most normal flowers that Daisy managed to create. But begin to walk among them and you'll find yourself collapsing to the ground, mentally confused. You will begin to hallucinate about things that make you happy, expressing these hallucinations to those around you. This might seem innocuous enough, but the poppies will eagerly be draining you of water and life energy to flourish around you. Your body will gradually begin to weaken, losing weight and seeming to shrivel up.

Those with a very strong mental fortitude may be able to resist the poppy's spell and save those who are not so lucky. Poppies are easily destroyed - no different than destroying a regular flower.

Dahlias sprout up here and there, and much like the poppies, they appear to be regular. However, if your body comes into contact with these things, you will find yourself filled with a strange intense urge to become violent whether it's against other people or toward the plants. The bloodlust will become nearly maddening, but you won't be content at merely killing things. You will want it to be slow and torturous. The only way to properly break this spell is for someone to shed your blood.

Despite the many violent possibilities in the park, there are plenty of flowers to merely enjoy with a certain safety. Still, it won't take anyone long to realize that the more violent flowers are beginning to encroach and ruin the rest of the park. You won't have long until they go past the park and into the rest of the town.

Daisy will be seen hacking away at the flowers now and again, and if you attempt to her approach her at this time, she will whip around to face you with a wide, strained eerie grin, her eyes a glaring white instead of their usual nearly infinite black.

"What is it? Oh? The flowers?" she asks, "Gardening sure is hard work! Together we should be able to get this place cleared up!" Then she turns to stare up at the sky, her smile frozen, her entire body motionless.

"What's that?" This time she isn't talking to you. "Of course. I won't-..."

She stops, looking almost scared for a moment before she turns her attention back to you.

"Sorry, Sweet Subject, but I have to go now. I'll come back later to help remove these pests. Good luck!" And just like that, she glitches out of existence. Not the most engaging conversation, but it does make one wonder...

[ Not All You're Cracked Up to Be ]

Summary:

🌼 Content Warnings: Body horror, manipulation of abilities, forced honesty, forced physical and mental weakening.

🌼 Characters who feel emotionally or physically vulnerable develop golden cracks all over their body.

🌼 These cracks weaken the character's physical body and drastically weaken any abilities. It will make them more prone to being honest about things that make them feel vulnerable.

🌼 Despite this, these characters cannot die from the cracks, but they may shatter while maintaining sentience/consciousness, and another character will have to put the pieces back together.

It begins at the tips of your fingers. Your skin begins to harden into a chalky white color, spreading across your arms, and up into your shoulders. The effect creeps down your back and across the rest of your body, until even your eyes and hair are white, your tongue and insides just as white. You have become something of a breathing porcelain doll, your body delicate and light.

The cause of the spread starts with feelings of vulnerability. The feeling like you may not be in control of your own life like you once thought you were. Like you believed before arriving in Sweet Acres. If your past was a mere fabrication, then what about everything else? What about who you are? The kind of person you are? The things you believe? Memories are one thing, but your personality is another. Has that been fabricated too?

Or perhaps you do get caught up in the memories from your "fake" life. Perhaps you're fixated on things, things you can't change, things you can't go back and fix. Because you're here now, after all, so your mistakes have been left with open ends and your dreams in limbo. What does that mean for you now?

The despair of it all is easy to sink into. The deeper you go, the more delicate your body becomes, until finally, the cracks begin to appear.

At a glance, they are beautiful to behold. Rivers of gold shimmering against the white, spreading over your skin like scored veins. That is when you begin to feel as vulnerable as you appear. You feel like the slightest wrong movement could turn you to dust. But you can't die: you can only break.

And when you do, you'll remain completely conscious. But you'll have to put yourself back together or get someone else to help you. Thankfully, this isn't too hard as it only requires you to physically push the pieces back together, but if your body is scattered to the wind...Well, you might just end up having to be patched up by Daisy.

It isn't entirely hopeless.

After all, don't forget that you're being watched by a live audience. And what does a live audience love more than the drama of people opening up to one another? During this state, you will be more inclined to be surprisingly honest with those who make you feel protected and understood, and if they show support toward your vulnerability, your body will toughen up and the gold will spread.

Each person's journey is unique to what they need to feel confident in, but eventually, if someone manages to make you feel supported enough, you'll turn completely gold, impervious to any physical damage for at least a week. Then the gold will melt away from your body entirely, finally leaving you as you used to be in your normal flesh and blood, but you will feel renewed and better than ever.

If you fail to feel comforted by anyone, your skin will begin to crumble away toward the end of the month, eventually exposing your old body, but you will feel extremely fatigued and a bit like you have the flu.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Me? I cry every single day. [It's meant to come out as a sort of self-deprecating joke, but when it's out there it just sounds...sad. Intensely, incredibly sad.

Koby almost reaches out, but every movement makes him feel very much like he's about to just crumble to bits, so he stays very still.] But no, it doesn't hurt. That's good.

Yeah? We have so much in common.

Yeah.

[He sits quietly, looking around at the eerily perfect streets around them.]

Why do you cry?

[There's a flicker of a smile at that, but it comes with a splintering fracture of gold, spreading across the side of Koby's face, so he stops quickly. The question, on the other hand, makes him pause, thinking.]

Because I'm afraid. Or frustrated, or overwhelmed. That's usually why. It just...seems to be my first reaction to most things. It always has been, and I've always gotten into trouble for it.

What about you?

Same. I often feel really stupid, too, and it makes me so upset that I cry. I even cry if I'm happy, sometimes.

[He studies his cracked arms.]

How did you get in trouble?

I don't think you're stupid. [Quietly, head tilted to one side, watching the cracks thoughtfully. Is it just him, or have they slowed? Perhaps. Maybe.]

Flogged, usually. It was a pirate ship. They're big on floggings. [Koby says it very matter-of-fact, almost carelessly, but there's a flicker of the way he actually feels on his face -- haunted, hollow, wounded.] Or no meals or sleep or something like that, if there wasn't time for proper punishment.

Eventually I learned to...not feel anything, until I was alone. Where nobody could see. I've gotten worse at that, lately.

You barely know me. But thank you.

[He turns and awkwardly opens his arms to offer a hug.]

That's terrible. They never ever should have done that.

You didn't deserve that treatment.

Is that bad? I don't think it's bad to feel things.

Well, maybe. But I've already made up my mind. [A bit huffily, which makes him feel more like himself. Warmer. Realer.

As does the embrace, even if his whole body shivers and tenses in anticipation of it -- hurting, breaking him more, something.] It was better than it could've been. I was the smallest and weakest on the ship. It...could've been something much, much worse. But -- thank you.

[A soft sigh, Koby's cheek resting on Iggy's shoulder.] I don't think it is either, but...feeling out of control about what you're feeling is. Scary. I don't like not having control.

Yeah? Well I've made up my mind that I like you!

Just because it could have been worse doesn't mean that you're not allowed to feel shitty about it.

[He hugs Koby a little tighter.]

I've spent most of my life with no control, and you're right: it's scary. But think, with emotions at least the storm will pass.

[That gets a laugh, a soft,, gentle thing, even warmer than Iggy's arm around his shoulders. It chases away some of that howling emptiness, makes Koby feel a bit more human. One of the splintery golden cracks across his cheek slowly seals up.]

I try to feel other things. I've spent so long feeling terrible about that time. I don't want to give it any more of me.

You mentioned. But it's better now, right? It gets easier.

Maybe you can find good things to feel here. Maybe we both can.

[It does feel much better to have physical contact. Platonic contact, even, which is novel.]

It is, and it does.

And we have each other now. I'll look out for you.

I -- hope so? I hope so. [Softly, shuddering on an exhale. Any contact at all is new for Koby, unfamiliar, but quenching something aching and raw inside him. He hadn't realized he'd wanted it so badly.

Then, looking down at his hands, Koby prompts softly:] Look. It's -- the gold's going away? I think? [He does feel considerably better. Perhaps it's connected.]

I can look out for you too. I'm not very strong yet, but I'm going to be. Someday.

[Iggy looks, then smiles. Smiles! He hasn't felt like smiling in days.]

It is!

Oh, sweetie. You are strong. I can tell, because you've made it this far.

And thank you. I would like that a lot.

I think I'm mostly just lucky. [But it's mumbled through a shy sort of grin.]

Is it working for you too? Making the -- porcelain, ceramic, whatever it is go away?

Oh, jeez, maybe...

[Iggy pushes up a sleeve and studies his arm. The cracks have thickened considerably, but they feel... strong.]

...yeah. I think... I think what's underneath it is stronger.

It's like if we pull each other up, if we stick together and share, we don't have to becso scared of breaking.

Have you ever broken before? Like, completely? Emotionally, I mean.

[Koby gives Iggy's arm a thoughtful, concerned frown, but finally nods.] It -- looks it? Hopefully? Do you feel better?

[It's a bit of an on-the-nose metaphor, and Koby huffs out a soft laugh, pushing his glasses back up his nose -- but he's relieved, all the same. Though the question makes him pause, thinking back.] ...not in a really long time. Maybe when I was a kid, but I don't think that counts the same way.

I do. Less sad. Less hollow.

No, I guess not. Little kids can fall apart and then go back to normal really quickly.

[He isn't sure if that's normal, actually.]

You're a lot tougher than you look.

Good. Keep talking. I think it's helping.

[That gets a bit of a half-smile, and a gentle nudge of Koby's elbow.] Were you a kid that fell apart a lot, then?

I guess. I sometimes think about what used to be normal to me, what I dealt with and...I don't really see how. Even thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.

Oh, fuck. I was such a weird little kid... I didn't have any friends. [He nudges back, smiling.] I used to go on these 'adventures' all alone, which was just me walking by the ocean playing pretend. I used to pretend I was a mermaid a lot.

[He gives Koby another hug.] That's because terrible shit was done to you, yeah? And you didn't deserve it. You should like, say that. Make it an affirmation.

Really? [Koby sounds dubious.] I would've been your friend. I was also weird, though. I liked reading and looking at maps and fishing and daydreaming. The other girls thought I was so strange... [Then, laughing:] A mermaid? Really?

Yeah. Yeah, it was terrible. It was awful. [Saying it makes Koby shiver a little, hands curling into fists where they rest on his legs.]

Really. I'd have been yours, too! You could have made us maps of our adventures! It would have been awesome.

[He grins.] Yup. A mermaid. Where I'm from there's this movie about a redhead mermaid? And I just thought she was the best. I knew all the songs and shit... God. I was so gay.

[Iggy pats one of those fists gently.]

And you didn't deserve it. Say that part, too.

Edited (Phone fingers fffffuuu) 2024-02-23 04:18 (UTC)

I was terrible at them, back then. I'd work so hard and they'd come out squiggly, still. [Koby laughs, nudging his glasses up his nose, then tapping the frames.] It took forever to figure out I just couldn't see what I was doing. I've gotten better since I got these.

...huh. Is liking mermaids, um...automatically a sign that you're, uh. Gay? [He's learning a lot today, wow.]

And I didn't deserve it. [There, ugh. Not without an eye roll, but at least he said it.]

Better than mine, I bet! Mine would look great and be totally useless!

[Iggy blinks, then grins. As he does, the cracks on his face split more to reveal even more gold.] Oh my god, of course! I love them, by the way. You have a great look.

[He shakes his head, laughing silently.] No, no. It's more like... There's a lot of sort of stereotypical things about it. It can be really damaging to some people. But me, I'm just like... I am the sort of person who actually is like that, I guess. Like I had dolls as a kid. I loved em. I liked the cartoons with singing and princesses. I care about fashion. But none of that actually matters when it comes to who I wanna fuck, no. I dunno. It's a complicated social thing.

[Iggy hugs him again.] Yay! I'm so proud of you!

Ah, right, you're an artist. [A real one, not a map one. Maps aren't very interesting to look at unless you're super into them like Koby is.

The compliment makes him laugh, cheeks going a little red, which offsets the gold oddly.] Thanks. I'm really lucky they haven't broken. I don't know if there's anywhere here I could get them prepared.

Another "construct"? [Koby's learning so much about sociology. But he laughs a little, sort of amused.] I had dolls too, but that's because I was supposed to. It was a girl's orphanage, so whenever anyone donated toys and things, it was mostly dolls. I remember always being disappointed there weren't more books. I eventually just...made my own fishing pole out of a stick and tried to catch things in puddles.

[Koby rolls his eyes, but he can't help but laugh.] Okay, okay, that wasn't that hard, you're right.

I am.

Good question. I feel like there must be. It's a medical issue, I can't imagine our clown overlord wants us to suffer that way.

Yeah! Yeah, exactly.

[Iggy smiles.] You sound so cute! And you felt the call of the sea really early. That's lovely.

It gets easier with practice, too!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

All that bloodshed, crimson clover

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