If you'd like to apply to Snowblind and would like to test the waters first or get a sample set up for your application, this meme is for you! We've even provided some prompts for you to use if you want (but feel free to make up your own). Here's how it works.
✭ Reply to this entry with a character you're considering apping into the game. You can include the name of your character and the fandom in your subject line. ✭ Comment around to others on the meme, whether you're in the game already or not. ✭ Now you have a sample ready for your application! ✭ So go reserve and apply when reservations and applications are open. ✭ Seriously, do it.
Network Prompts
ONE: IT WON'T BE LONG NOW... Well, you made a mistake. You spent too long searching around, or you ran outside near the end of the day for just one more thing, and now you've been locked out. You can search around all you want, but the best shelter you can hope for is pressing against the side of a sealed up building. You do still have your tablet, though. Maybe someone on the network can give you some advice, or at least some comfort while you wait for hypothermia to set in.
TWO: CABIN FEVER Maybe you didn't want that mistake of getting caught outside to happen again, but now you've ended up staying too long in one location, and cabin fever has set in. Maybe you're taking to the network to try and ignore the hallucinations. Maybe you want to tell everyone that you've figured out they're all in on your kidnapping. Maybe you ended up wandering off and now you'd really like to know if anyone can check back in the place you were at for your pants.
Action Prompts
THREE: AN UNEXPECTED MEETING You're going about your business searching what seems like it might be an especially promising house--it's fully intact and there's even a working fireplace with some wood! It looks like someone else has the same idea, though, and you've run into them in the middle of your search. Do you share the potential wealth or try to kick them out? On the other hand, maybe you know who this is, or maybe you're just glad to actually see another person for the first time in ages.
FOUR: GOOD MORGUE-NING You've just woken up in a morgue after dying in one unfortunate way or another. You have no idea where you are beyond that, but your tablet is insisting you can't stay here, so you should probably get out of here pretty quickly. Of course, bringing people back from the dead isn't a perfect science, so you're missing something important to you. Maybe you've lost your voice, maybe you can't remember where you're from, maybe you can't remember where you are right now. It looks like someone else is nearby, though. Maybe they can help you out?
[This is a nightmare. This is literally one of the worst things that could happen to her. She did not escape from the frozen prison that almost killed her and all of her people just to end up in some different snowy death trap.
She couldn't even put on the coat given to her because her fins were in the way of the sleeves! She has it fastened around her neck like a cape, which looks completely stupid and unfitting for royalty, but it's really cold and she knows what happens if she gets too cold. The tablet also gave her some trouble; she'd never seen anything like it in Hyrule and it took a lot of toying to get it to do what she wanted to do.
Of course, being stubborn and technologically illiterate, Ruto completely ignored the warning to find shelter. And now, as established, she is living a nightmare. She finally manages to access the video broadcast function on the network to air her grievances.]
Hey! Why do you all have your doors locked? Do you know how cold it is out here?! Someone could freeze to death!
[She does not understand that everything locked automatically.]
prompt three ❅
[A fireplace! Ruto can hardly believe it. She's never been so excited to see fire in her entire life. Living in the water means it's pretty rare that she even needs it. But it's pretty much the best thing she's ever seen, at the moment.
So what does she do once she's sure the fire won't go out on her?
She gathers everything remotely soft and pillow-like in the house and spreads it in front of the fireplace so she can take a luxurious nap.
This has been a wholly miserable trip thus far. She deserves some sleep.
Except the door is unlocked and she's probably not the only one who would be very interested in a house with a working fireplace. Oh well!]
wildcard ❅
[Open to other ideas, just hit me up with a starter!]
[ Will isn't a stranger to hallucinations, not by a long stretch. And while he's used to them, used to turning a blind eye and focusing his attention elsewhere, it's getting more and more difficult in this tiny, enclosed space of the cabin. At least in the cell he had something to focus all his thoughts on. He had an end goal in that cell, a victory condition: implicate and kill Hannibal.
Here, though, he isn't sure what his goal is. There's no lofty, noble one. Just primal instinct: survive the night and try not to go crazy. Try.
He opts to give the network a go when he starts seeing the wendigo creeping in the corners of his vision. Whenever he glances at the black, antlered figure, it stops moving. Look away and it creeps again, closer and closer. He would consider a staring contest if he were less stable. Right now, though, he knows it's not real. Just a figment of his imagination. An inconvenience. That's if this place doesn't suddenly manifest your thoughts into life, which isn't such an absurd thing to consider with the eerie, uneasy feeling blanketing everything here. ]
Would it be safe to assume that the cold is the only thing that needs worrying about here?
THREE ; action
He felt right at home in this cabin, mostly because it resembled his humble little home. Being surrounded by snow wasn't exactly unfamiliar, either, but the snow here had such a biting, lethal quality to it. It chilled him more than the usual winters he experienced did, and the snowfall and accompanying gusts of wind felt sinister somehow. Will had exactly zero inclination to brave the weather outside now that he had found solace in this shelter, and besides, it was getting to nightfall, anyway. Going outside under these conditions would be a death sentence.
He had managed to start and stoke a fire, and had even managed to find a few blankets tucked away in a drawer, one of which he was now repurposing as a rug in front of the fire, and the other was draped around his shoulders. It was a shame none of the strays were here. Winston, in particular. Huddling for body warmth was a fairly good idea, but he supposed he would have to make do on his own. Perhaps the long winters in his cabin had only been bearable due to the flurry of activity and warmth that all the dogs brought with them.
He fed the fire another log, watching it grow in size as he sat back, steel poker in hand.
It had been a stupid idea to wander about in the snow. Warrick blamed the stupidity entirely on whatever flight of imaginative fancy had persuaded him that he'd heard something besides the howl of wind that had persisted for the past few days. A voice. Someone calling out. A connection to someone or something real - besides him - that existed in this void of white. He'd wanted it badly enough to trek out into the blinding snow and look for footprints or scratch marks on trees or anything at all to tell him he wasn't crazy, and now it was getting darker and colder (as if that were even possible) and the tracks he'd made in the drifts had long since filled with new snow, obliterating his retreat.
He'd probably die out here. Well good. It would save him the agony of starving to death or losing his toes to frostbite if he simply froze to death. Bit cowardly to lie down in the snow and succumb, though there wouldn't be anyone to witness it. Warrick struggled on stubbornly instead, chin tucked down against the bite of the wind, which was probably why he almost bumped into the walls of the cabin before he noticed it.
"Oh, thank Christ," he muttered to himself as tapped at the solid logs, beyond the point of caring whether this was a cold-induced hallucination or not. He'd rather freeze to death in illusory comfort, if that were an option. And it seemed that it might be.
From the flickering of shadow behind the frosted windows, there might even be a light source somewhere within, and light meant heat. Stumbling with the eagerness to get inside, he trekked around the small shack until he found the door and then flung himself at it.
Matt hears the house, but only just barely, its walls creaking against the blowing wind that's doing its best to freeze his skin to numbness, wailing in his ears and chasing his senses of smell and taste away. He feels blind - truly blind - in ways that he hasn't since he was nine. It snows in New York, of course, but the buildings hinder the worst of the winds and provide shelters for his senses on every block. Here, in this more barren place, he doesn't think he actually managed to find the little house any faster than someone squinting off into the distance might have, and that smarts.
He covers the rest of the ground to the lone cabin slowly, buffeted by snow and hampered by the terrain, his cane gripped uselessly in his freezing fingers, which slip and fumble around the handle when he finally reaches and shoves open the front door.
It's only after he's already inside, door closed behind him, teeth chattering loudly in his own ears, that he notices a heartbeat in the building: he's not alone. Stupid. His confidence is taking a lot of blows today, so he swallows whatever pride he's got left and lowers his guide cane, tapping it on the wooden floor in front of him. Doing so acts both as a visual clue-in to his impairment for whoever might be in here - which tends to serve to make people underestimate him, or see him as non-threatening (both usually come with a side of pity, which also smarts) - and gives him a loud noise so he can hear out the layout of the house and see what is lying around inside of it.
He inhales through his nose, and exhales through lips he's slightly afraid might be turning blue. There's a fireplace, and dry firewood. "Hello? Is there anyone here?"
He'd like not to be seen as breaking in, if he can help it. He doesn't want a fight.
Not having her usual enhanced senses was screwing with her, and bad. She should've heard him well before he started up the driveway. Should've rigged a perimeter alarm, and gone outside to check even if it was just the heavy snow setting it off. Dad would be furious. Rose retreats to the corner of the room, fist clenched, cursing inwardly. Stupid, stupid, rookie mistake.
The man who enters has a cane and glasses, but the cane's not immediately touching the floor. She narrows her eye.
'Please don't hurt me,' she says, making her voice high and frail. She's crouched next to the table, giving her cover from anything that comes through the door or window, the backpack sitting on the floor next to her. He's blind, but that doesn't mean anything. People will do anything to survive, that includes pretend to be more helpless than they are. It's a tactic she herself has been fooled by until she learnt to use it to gauge the real nature of whatever's in front of her. Some people will hurt women. Others will hurt kids.
Her heartbeat is the only thing that betrays her: it's not the rapid thrum of someone scared, but the steady beat of an ambush predator. She has a hand on the hilt of her knife, waiting, watching him.
[Yu can't remember how he got here. Not at first, anyway. Regardless... he appears to be lying atop a cold steel table. He pushes himself up by his elbows with a weak grunt of exertion, only to find that his immediate surroundings aren't any more pleasant. It looks like he's been brought back to the morgue... What happened to him out there?
His tablet buzzes rhythmically in his jacket pocket, like a mechanical heartbeat, dragging him back out of his thoughts. With a sigh, the boy fumbles around for it and takes a look at the alert. He shouldn't stay here. Just as well. The answer, he's sure, will come to him in time. Right now, he'd better focus on getting out of here and getting his bearings.
Once he's ready, Yu slides off the table and onto his feet, clutching his arms over his chest for warmth as he makes his way towards the door. Before he can, however... he hears something. Or rather, someone. Someone in the morgue he didn't notice when he'd first woken up. He turns to face them, opens his mouth to ask,
"Are you all right?"
But instead, all that escapes him is - ]
...
[He pauses. Tries again.]
...?!
[> You've come across a boy without a voice in this strange morgue...
> Help him out? > Leave him be.]
WILDCARD
[Open to any other prompts or starters you would prefer as well. Can match prose or brackets!]
[Yosuke's been freezing his ass off from the very start of this debacle. He hasn't been affected by frostbite just yet, but he's been on a personal journey of sorts. Playing detective's become somewhat of a habit, apparently, but no one can blame him under these conditions. His tablet's been fairly useful in it's own way, but a tablet's just a tablet. If he could somehow produce flames and set it on fire, then he'd be happy.
But he cannot, and thus he's been searching for answers on foot until, comically convenient as it is, he happens upon a functioning home. Of course, he doesn't really know that it's functioning until he knocks, tests the knob and treads inside, hugging himself and rubbing at his upper-arms in an attempt to create some friction and speed up the thawing process.]
Hey..? Anybody in here-? I knocked, so...
[So please don't try to kill him. He calls out a few more times before testing the bathroom first and foremost in Typical Yosuke Fashion (when you g2g you g2g, and it doesn't seem like anyone's here at all..). Next, he's fussing around with the fire place and searching nearby drawers for a matchbook; figuring out how to start a fire Bear Grylls style has been his main issue since waking up in the morgue -- which is something he's done his very best to forget about!
Robb pulled his fur cloak tighter around his shoulders as his eyes scanned around his surroundings. The snow crunched under his feet as he walked around, trying to figure out where he was, but there wasn't a soul to speak with him. In fact, the city looked completely abandoned let alone himself and Grey Wind, his dire wolf, walking alongside him.
He was without food or weapons, he realized, and no bannermen to speak of. Was he entirely alone? What in seven hells did this mean?
Grey Wind whines next to him at the same moment Robb's eyes laid upon a single house. It was intact and looked promising as shelter. Being respectful, Robb knocks and waits at the door. After not hearing anything he finds it unlocked and empty. "Hello?" He spoke up, stepping through, only to be pushed aside as Grey Wind entered and immediately sniffed around. If he seemed unbothered, then it must've been empty.
Finding a fireplace, wood, and flint, Robb managed to start a fire and waited for the heat to warm him up. As soon as he was comfortable enough to removed his cloak, Grey Wind started growling, facing in the direction from where they entered the house and Robb heard the door open.
Jon had gone outside to gather firewood. He drops it all when he sees who waits in the house.
Ghost rushes forward with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, circling Grey Wind and nipping at his neck, butting his head against Robb's leg. Jon can only stand there, his mouth agape. He isn't sure what to think. He isn't sure he can think. He moves almost automatically to wordlessly embrace Robb. There are too many things he wants to say, and he doesn't know if he should say any of them.
[At first he wasn't going to say anything. Maybe it was just a mistake. A bad reaction to the constant cold and hunger and pressure. But it's been days of harassment and this is getting to be too much. He has to tell someone. If only to confirm his suspicions.]
You know how they say that three's a magic number? Well, that's the third weird shadow I've come across today. Or nearly come across. It's just a bit too fast for me. Shy, maybe.
[Or stalking him. And there are only so many people around. After so many repeated cases of this not-quite-tag, it's starting to make a whole lot more sense why that is.]
I'd say it's cute, but we're way past cute. Some else want to clue me in here? I can't be the only one they're into.
[3]
"Oh, thank God." Tony thought he was talking to an empty room. An escape from the constant, horrible cold that never seemed to let up in the town. It had gotten so bad he was beginning to think that he was just becoming part of it. Like the town, he was going to lose all of the heat in his body, forget how to feel anything, and end up a stiff figure. Another dark building. But then he stumbled onto the house with actual food (meager, but there) and even a fireplace! At last, a real source of heat. He was so numb from wandering around it actually took him several minutes to realize that he wasn't alone in the room. He was crouched by the fireplace, trying to figure out how he was going to light a fire in it, when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Survival instinct slowly crept back into his nerves as the shelter warmed them and he turned around sharply. He gripped one of the small logs defensively, because he didn't know how long that other presence had been watching him. Why hadn't he noticed someone standing there? Oh, of course. Because he was offline.
Just another reason to hate that town.
"Who are you?" That seemed like a fair question to be asking the stranger. Start with introductions first, right? Maybe they were like him and just looking for a place to escape the snow. Please, don't want a fight. He doesn't know if he could fight someone at this point, but he isn't going back outside. "Um, you wouldn't happen to have a light, would you? Just. You know. Gonna borrow it if you do."
[4]
He was dead. He was pretty sure he was dead. That was generally what happened to people who were stupid enough to wander right into death traps without remembering it was dark outside. But then, people generally didn't wake up after being impaled and find themselves lying on a morgue slab either. So he should have been dead, but Tony realized as he collected his thoughts that somehow he was actually alive. He shakily pulled up his shirt only to find that the wound he'd received was closed over and nothing but a scar. What was happening?
The tablet didn't give him time to consider that much. It was telling him to leave, and to be honest he didn't need the urgent warning to make him want to go. He practically ran out of the room, fleeing the morgue and heading anywhere else. For once he was shivering from something other than the cold. He looked back, still wondering how he was even able to walk again, and ran right into something solid.
Another person. Another living soul.
He was so grateful for that he didn't even consider why that other person might be there. He started rambling impulsively, telling the stranger he was glad to see them - glad to see anyone, really - and that they needed to leave, when he realized he hadn't actually said anything at all.
Shit.
Well, so much for not panicking. The other person unfortunate enough to end up at the morgue now had one very persistent man gripping them by the shoulders. At least they made a friend? Sort of.
(ooc: I'm up for action or prose. And feel free to wildcard if you want!)
Dying wasn't such a surprise. Without Noi, Shin's recklessness was going to get him killed sooner or later. It's a surprise waking up again.
Or at least he thinks he's waking up again. Everything is still black, but maybe it's just dark. He sits up and feels his way off the surface he's sitting on, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but they never do. He tries rubbing them a few times, but stops when he hears the shuffle of footsteps and the rasp of nervous breathing. Shin turns towards the sounds, but unable to see, doesn't move out of the way before two hands land on his shoulders and he gets shaken back and forth.
His automatic reaction is to punch where he guesses his assailant's face is and shout, "Fuck off!"
one. [ caroline's shivering. she honestly forgot what it feels like to shiver, to feel really cold, down to the bone. something is definitely wrong. she feels wrong, feels fragile. and she's alone.
she manages a smile just before turning on her device, forcing her teeth to stop chattering.]
Can someone p-please let me in? I mean, s-seriously? I was barely f-five minutes late. It's getting f-freezing out here. Please.
three.
[ caroline isn't the sort to kick someone out who needs help. she's more of the share the wealth, sort. and when the wealth isn't even fit for a pauper, she'll sacrifice it for others. she's always been this way. as she sits by her very-well-put-together fire (she aced her fire-starter badge in girl scouts), she hears the floorboards of the old, danky house creak. she looks up quickly, clutching the knife she's fashioned out a broken steel beam, holding it to her side.] Hello? [ she tries to sound friendly, although she doesn't have the full benefit of being a vampire anymore. her super strength is now barely more than a weight lifter's.] It's okay. Come out. I don't mind sharing. [ and she doesn't mind defending herself too, if she needs to.]
[ she's the first face he's seen in this terrible place that he knows; the first and only familiarity in this harsh bleakness. he feels rather than knows how he sobers, how the twisted, angry amusement of checking his device for a new message dissipates at her presence.
he has searched high and low. for his family that he must assume is wrapped up in this treachery too. and here caroline appears.
if he has any of his senses, any of his speed and strength, he would be out that door to find and follow her scent. he would be at her side in a moment, through necessity and something else. something human, as human as he is right now.
and she; she is in all likelihood just as fragile, just as damned. ]
Caroline. Show me where you are and I will lead you to safety.
[1] honestly jon is more embarrassed than anything about his predicament. if he can't protect himself from the cold, what use is he to anyone? it isn't like him to lose time to the hunt, meager as it was. it isn't like ghost to let him. he isn't worried for them, so much. ghost was born to live in conditions like these, and he can share in ghost's fur and warmth. besides, there are worse ways to die than freezing to death, and there are the deaths you don't come back from. it's said the process will take something from you, maybe your memories of home. there are a lot of memories he'd be better off without. it's hard not to think of ygritte, exposed to the elements like this; try as he might he can't help but associate this sort of rough living with his time with her. would it be better for him if he could forget that time altogether? part of him feels it would be, but part of him knows he wouldn't be the man he is today if he did.
these are grim and unhelpful thoughts. it takes a while for a man and a direwolf to freeze to death, and there's every likelihood he might find help before then. unlike at home he has a means of communicating his situation before frostbite sets in. he crouches down to build a sort of hollow snow shelter against the side of the building to keep him out of the worst of the wind. he climbs down into it, and ghost settles around him. he buries their catch in the snow beside him; they will not, at least, go hungry. it's nothing big enough to be much use as a pelt. his furs will keep him dry enough. he brushes a little snow out of his hair, and pulls out the device he was given.]
This is Jon Snow. I ask shelter for me and my wolf. We have a few rabbits to share with any who open their doors to us.
[he sounds measured and calm, if a little frustrated. his teeth aren't even chattering yet.]
Jon-- [It's out of her mouth before she knows what to do. It's almost an immediate reaction to clamp her hand over her mouth, but instead she keeps her jaw tight. He looks different, older and harder. He looks more like their uncle Benjen in his black cloak, and the thought of family tears at her heart.
It doesn't matter if she has the dark hair. It doesn't matter if she has gone by the name Alayne. It is hard to shed it, but there's no Petyr here, there's no Lannisters, and there's no Harry Hardyng. There's no grand scheme to take back Winterfell, and while it means nearly shedding what Littlefinger has taught her, he is the last family she has.]
I don't know if the doors open, but there's a shed behind the house I'm in. [If she can only lead him there.]
[1] [Hope is wishing she had paid more attention to the get off the streets warning her new device had been showing her. She thought it was an optional thing, but apparently they took it seriously enough to lock all the doors. Which as her mind kept reminding her, left her out in the cold.... She tries to not look too worried as she turns on the video of the device.]
I'm getting really tired of being locked out of places. I don't suppose anyone could let me in? Or in the worst case scenario offer some tricks to avoid freezing to death for a night. Actually that's probably second best case scenario, let me try again. Worst case scenario, can someone come and remove my body tomorrow morning so any scavengers don't eat it?
I haven't seen any wild animals but we can't be that isolated....can we?
[3] [She probably should have looked around more but she's been moving around all day and the sight of a house with possible supplies is too good to pass up. She notices the other person in the house as she's rooting around the food.]
Oh....Hello....I don't suppose you're open to sharing supplies?
[Simon could really use someone who knows how to start a fire. Here's why he shouldn't have tried to quit smoking - he would've had his lighter with him, and while that might not have been enough to get a decent fire going, it would've most likely been a thousands times easier with it.]
I could let you in I suppose, but I can tell for sure if you're real or not.
[He's been trapped in the house for quite some time, trying to sleep mostly, but the quiet and the cold is starting to get to him.]
Besides, there's this gross.... thing, strapped to the couch in here. I'm not sure if it's real or not either but it's bleeding all over the place.
[ It is cruel to the point of worrying, a world that won’t bend beneath her fingers. Digging at the wood, pounding at the windows - none of it does any good. The closest building remains locked to her. Inside, lights are thrown out against the panes of glass, blots of orange and almost watery; the way they blink, there and not there, there and not there, makes Mikasa feel like the buildings themselves are laughing at her.
Eventually, when her mittens are bloodied and her boots soaked through, she slumps down against the nearest wall. The tablet is still alien to her and by now her fingers are resistant to moving, struggling rather unwillingly in the biting chill.
Typing, such as it is, does not go well. ]
c an someoeopen the
[ She didn’t mean to send the incomplete message but there it is, bouncing around the network, as unhelpful as anything.
The second one comes almost two minutes later. ]
door
[ What door, you may ask? – Good question. ]
» ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ.
[ Mikasa kneels over a crackling fire place, in stark contrast to the above prompt. Her coat is off, hanging over a chair to drip ineffectually onto the floor, and her boots are likewise deposited near the door - the tidiness involved is clear military, for obvious reasons. The scarf remains on, though. Her lips and eyelids are almost pale with hectic slashes of pink high up on her cheekbones; going from extreme cold to the thin beginnings of livable heat is an adjustment, telling its story in patches on her skin.
There had been a stack of newspapers in the corner for kindling. Mikasa had kept a few, including the most recent one, for the sake of dates and notable events in the area, but nothing was familiar. The rest had been hurled into the fire without forgiveness.
When the door creaks open, the entering party is held in her peripheral vision. Mistrustful without being aggressive, her back straightens as a prelude to action not taken. A cold person looking for shelter could be a threat, or - they could just be a cold person looking for shelter.
[ 8PM is signaled by an ominous click throughout the house he has taken refuge in. After a prompt, exhaustive investigation, he determines that the front door and every window has been sealed tight. Not even his strength can coax an opening in any of the frameworks. He doesn’t like it; these walls may shelter him from the unforgiving elements, but he’s become effectively trapped. A lifetime of battling Titans—and more monstrous beings still, humans themselves—has instilled within him the instinctive need to have escape routes readily available. Mindful of the temperature rapidly sinking, he performs a second sweep of the house for supplies but is rewarded with little. Someone has already scavenged this building, it seems.
He has few options. Levi locates the smallest enclosed space, a closet, and beds down there in a makeshift nest of tattered, musty sheets found upstairs. Once situated, he pulls out the strange machine from his pack to make a brief note on his current base. No resources, he types slowly, squinting at the artificial light, no fireplace.
By the hour he checks the messages on the machine, it’s far too late for Mikasa. Levi knows it. Understands it in cold, uncompromising certainty—she’s dead. Only a matter of time now. And yet he’s standing, shrugging off clingy sheets, throwing open the closet door to pace the breadth of the building. He's needlessly wasting energy, he thinks, but doesn't try to still himself. Outside, the wind howls like the stuff of his nightmares. ]
Mikasa. [ Forgoing a text response, he tries to set aside the knowledge that the sound of his voice, too harsh in the eerie silence, is all he can offer her now. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. ] Mikasa. Report. Where are you?
[With the setting of the sun the wind has increased to near gale proportions, whipping powdery snow sideways and decreasing visibility to almost nothing. Even Al is finding it hard to see more than a foot in front of him, and he didn't have human eyes that needed shielding from the barrage of snow.]
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?!
[His voice sounds weak and high, words snatched by the gale and disappearing. He can almost believe he can hear the taunting laughter of... something... nearby. He sees something move out of the corner of his eye, but it's gone when he turns to look.]
ANYBODY?!
[Maybe this was a foolish idea after all. He only wanted to help anyone who might be lost out in the storm, but he's gone and got himself lost instead. At least there's no worry of freezing to death, and maybe he will come upon someone he can help.]
[ Paranoia is already a brand in her personality, burned into her spirit by the horrors that occurred on her ship, the Von Braun, where madness had overtaken the hallways. A being of flesh and hunger and unity had infected her crew mates, one by one, turning them into ugly, tormented, and misshapen things that had begged her for their death in the same breaths that they promised her power and togetherness. There had been worms everywhere, parasites that slunk into the ears of the incautious and changed them with their hideous singing.... ]
NETWORK - CABIN FEVER DELACROIX to ALL: ❚❚❚❚❚-❚❚❚❚❚-❚❚❚❚❚ re: the Singing
I have truly gone nowhere at all. The subtle singing, calling for surrender, it is still in the air.
Resist. Remember
ACTION - MORGUE [ The tacky sensation of rising from the dead is not a new one to her, Marie Delacroix is disgusted to say. She had risen with the sun in this wretched little town days ago after her head bashed in by SHODAN's petulance. In the back of her mind she suspects that she is still trapped inside of SHODAN's petulance, her virtual reality fed by the power of the Faster Than Light drive that Marie herself had designed. She feels nauseous and her head rings, but she will not give that psychopathic piece of programming the satisfaction of breaking her down. If SHODAN continues to give her life, then Marie will continue to do it.
She slides down from the gurney on unsteady feet, and promptly crumples to the floor.
Apparently what she's lost is her balance.
She is stunned and silent for a moment as the vertigo continues, and then she jams the heel of her hand against her aching brow and curses, loudly, colorfully. ]
[ he has searched long enough. there is nothing out here, nothing but snow and emptiness, and he has not seen a soul in hours. all around him is the forest and darkness, the sounds of the night creeping in, and the torture of the cold seeping into his bones.
he is not used to it, being under the threat of the elements, being so bone-exhausted in so little time, and the reality of that danger has set. it tightens his jaw even as his teeth threaten to chatter, reaching the cropping of houses he left this afternoon.
the sounds of his tablet is abuzz, and so he does what he must, turning on the voice option on as he breeches the town.
klaus is pale besides the points of deep color on his windswept face, red and pink and white under his scruff. and despite his dire situation, despite the shaking of his fingers around his device, his voice is clear, melodious, and seemingly unworried. ] I assume by the subsequent quiet and freeze you've all taken inside. I hope someone has room for a weary latecomer. I know how to make a fire, if that helps.
WILDCARD!
any other starters okay! prose or brackets welcome. :)
There's a fireplace here. [Her voice is meeker than she would like it to be, but she doesn't look afraid. Only tired. There's little heat in the house without the fireplace, but the shelter keeps out the wind. It's a start, and it certainly doesn't hurt that she's bundled in blankets, thick duvets and warm knitted blankets.]
My father used to start the one in our cabin. I can't seem to get this one lit. [Abigail sniffles. Letting strange, dark men help her seems to be her thing. She isn't afraid though, just bitterly cold.]
[Bollocks, this was not what she'd planned on. Helena had been onto something, she'd been too absorbed in trying to figure it out and lost track of time. And now, well, she was locked out. She burrowed down beside one of the buildings and pulled out the tablet.]
Have to say, this is not how I planned things to go. Suppose it serves me right for being far too involved in trying to find something. Curiosity was bound to be my downfall sooner or later, it seems.
[Humor was always a good defense mechanism.]
Never thought this would be the way I'd go, though. It's rather lackluster for H.G. Wells to die of bloody hypothermia, wouldn't you agree?
FOUR
Helena's eyes opened and she found herself in a strange place. Well, at least until she turned her head and then it became obvious where she was. It was a morgue. Which meant...had she died? That was the logical conclusion given the fact she was lying on a table. Sitting up, she tried to get her bearings, but she couldn't grasp much. She really didn't know where she was or how she got here. But she must have been here before considering she'd just woken up here, right?
That's when she noticed the tablet with its insistent message. Frowning, Helena picked it up and looked at it. Well, she wasn't one that ignored such insistent warnings to get out of a place, so she quickly found her way out of the morgue.
Wherever this place was, once she was outside, she noticed the snow, and the feeling that the place had been abandoned. Creepy was a word that only began to cover it. Helena gaped a bit at her surroundings, having no recollection whatsoever of the town. Which was odd, right? Clearly she'd remember a place like this. She may be far older than she looked, but Helena had a damn good memory, and this place wasn't in any of her memories.
That's when she spotted another person. Oh good, someone she could talk to and figure out where she was.
Sofia was looking for someone rather than waking up. She couldn't say she was familiar with anyone here but if she turned up dead almost like this broad on the table then maybe someone she knew might as well. She couldn't help the stab of guilt ripping through her gut. She shouldn't be wishing for a companion in Satan's freezer but hey. Some company is better than none.
There isn't much to scavenge in the morgue aside from rusted and nearly unusable surgical tools she is sure have seen far too many autopsies. "Shit!" Her heart nearly leaps out of her chest and she catches a pan before it can clatter to the ground.
"You weren't breathin' a second ago. What the fuck?" Keep it together, Sofia. "Uh yeah. Whaddya wanna know?" Real smooth recovery there. Jesus Christ.
[Martha curled against the side of whatever sealed building she had stumbled upon. Beating against the doors had done her no good, and the air was only getting colder.
Cold fingers fumbled for the tablet and she managed to pull up a video transmission.
She shivered into the camera.]
I don't suppose anyone here has any advice on snow caves. Made a few in my time, but the weather here might be too much for even that.
[Three]
The house was a welcome relief, and Martha almost cried when she saw the wood. She knew how to make it last the night, and perhaps into another one or two.
In no time at all, she had a small fire going. Martha sat in front of it, letting her body relax as the heat ran over it.
England was loathe to enter a house that someone else was already occupying, but it was getting late and he didn't have time to go looking for another place that could offer sufficient protection from the cold. He could tell by the firelight streaming through the windows that someone was inside, but he couldn't really get a look at them.
His knock was urgent and firm, though to tell the truth, he could barely feel the impact of his knuckles against the door with how long he'd been out in the cold. He was a bit miserable at the idea that his safety for the night rested in this stranger's hands, but he tried not to wear too sour of an expression, lest they answer the door to the death glare of a lifetime.
He still ended up looking pretty grumpy. It's his default expression.
[She doesn't want to admit what she's done. Only Hannibal knows, and that was an admission in a weak moment. But it's never too far for her until she's cracked in breaking when she's constantly trying to bury the truth every day. So the days when she's stuck in the cabin with nothing but the network and her thoughts, she tends to fight the boredom by using the network.]
Anyone figure out how not to be bored? [In the psychiatric unit they at least let them outside, but this is just too much.]
I'll I've been doing is talking, and I don't want to talk about me. Or home. Or this goddamn place. [She's restless and irritable, and looking up at the ceiling isn't helping. Nothing is helping.]
[ This wouldn't be a problem anywhere else. This shouldn't be a problem--for ages now, his body's been nothing but a shell for a broken ideal. Still, by the time he starts to feel the warmth of hypothermia in his extremities, Archer finally acknowledges that his body is no longer the reinforced magical powerhouse he'd been summoned into back home.
Somehow, he manages to use his tablet. ]
This is a terrible, rotten thing to ask.
But does anyone here wish to be a hero? It's an awful fate, but at least for now, you'll enjoy saving me from freezing to death.
⚔ FOUR.
[ He remembers sheltering someone against an attack. That's the last thing he remembers, and as he wakes up laid out on the slab, he silently curses himself for doing it. Stupid, stupid, useless, that he'd still do such a pointless and sacrificial thing, even when his body is just as human as anyone else's, even when his magecraft is gone.
He can't help but feel that there's something he doesn't remember, though. With that nagging sense of loss lingering in his brain, Archer sits up and swings himself onto his feet on the floor. ]
Jeez, what a welcome. We could at least wake up in a nice bed, not that I particularly care.
[ And then he stops, gaze distantly fixed on the opposite wall, as it finally hits him.
He can't remember a single sword. All his thousands of magical and legendary blades stored safely in his head--he doesn't remember a thing about any of them.
He hisses through his teeth, suddenly cursing himself more than ever. ]
[ Because she may have set hers in a moment of nostalgia and/or spite. Either way, she's now deeply regretting it. Also: stuck in a cabin, feeling a little claustrophobic, everything's awful, etc.
Complaining about it on the network isn't going to solve anything; not when they can hardly step foot outside without freezing to death. ]
ACTION (THREE)
[ She hardly recognizes the sound of fire crackling, at first. When she turns a corner and sees the light, there's a jump of excitement in her chest that no amount of pessimism can crush. Clarke approaches the hearth without hesitation, squatting down in front of it and dragging her ragged gloves off to hold bare skin up towards the flames.
It's easy to get lost in that warmth, but the reprieve doesn't last long. The sound of footsteps brings her to her feet, quick, pale gaze snapping to the nearby doorway. ]
Who's there?
[ Her voice is steady and commanding, though it's carefully stripped of hostility. ]
[ A groan resonates from deep within her ribcage as Buffy blearily blinks back to consciousness—or more accurately, back to life. The metal sheet of the morgue drawer is cool on her bare back, and flickering, fluorescent light struggles to filter its way in through the open drawer. Lifting one hand, she presses the flat of her palm to the upper barrier of the drawer her body is squirreled away in. Then, slowly, she reaches upward to pull at the edge of the opening. The harsh rattle of grating metal accompanies her slide out into the main room, and she sits up as soon as she's able, joints aching with each movement.
A paper thin hospital gown covers her front, tied loosely at the base of her neck, but it does nothing for the cold as she twists to gently lower her feet to the frozen linoleum. As breath shudders past her dry, cracked lips, it turns into a white puff of steam. Her toes curl as she slowly gets her bearings, sizing up the room around her. ]
They didn't even think to put mints on the pillow? [ The chill sinks in, straight to her bones, and Buffy wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders as her teeth begin to chatter. ] Last time I overnight at the Bates Motel.
prompt one: network
Here's a fun hypothetical
Muffy Winters decided she wanted to get a look around this place and took too long getting back. Now she's outside with exactly one (1) jacket and sensible but not insulated boots and you might have noticed but the tundra is not a great place for a camp-out.
Tips? Tricks? Is Muffy doomed to slow, sleepy death by deep freeze?
[ When she goes out with only a few minutes of daylight left, it's intentional. Some people still haven't checked in, and if anyone's lasted through nigh supernatural winters, it's the Russian spy. With a thick, wool-lined coat, a ski mask, and padded gloves, she makes her way out into the dark. A pack is strapped to her back, filled with flares, fire-starter necessities, flashlights, and a lantern. If anyone's out there, they're going to need help, and she's offering it. ]
This is Romanoff. If anyone's alive out there, report immediately for aid.
prompt three: action
[ It's one of the few in-tact unoccupied houses, and that's only one reason Nat decides to plant her flag in it so to speak. Enough space that she could bring others in, if they need it. An environment that she can keep an eye on, control, work out of. She's short on those, lately.
She uses a wrought iron poker to stoke the fire she's started. The sun is still up, but barely, when a sound catches her attention across the house. She doesn't move to follow it, but tracks its exploration of the first floor towards the warmth of the living room with her back to all the entrances.
When the heavy sound of winter boots hits the hardwood of the living room. She pulls the poker from the fire, steadying both hands on the handle and pressing the red-hot pointed end into a groove of the wooden floor. It singes the wood. ]
[ Stopped at the doorway into the living room, Charles is not an imposing person in the flesh -- or in any other way, anymore -- and doesn't seem specifically interested in usurping anyone else's claim over the house. He's brought the winter in with him, ice crystals in the weave of his coat, crusted in the laces of his boots, and he wants, very much, to approach the fire.
But he doesn't, yet. That's a very sharp, burning thing she has in her hands, and so his gaze catches first on the fire she's built up -- thank god -- and then her, and her poker. ]
I propose an exchange. [ English, crisply, conversational. ] A spot by the hearth for a nip of whiskey.
[ She had thought she didn't need the houses. She had ignored the warning to go back inside. Years of wilderness survival, she thought, would mean she didn't need to rely on anything this place tried to give her.
She had been a fool.
When Lexa wakes, her last memories are of a euphoric numbness, of burrowing deeper into the snow, dreamily relieved that her shaking limbs had finally stilled. It feels like surfacing after a nightmare, the vague memories making her shiver with horror if she examines them too closely, but it's worse because she isn't able to pretend, even for a moment, that when she sits up she'll be home in her blankets, surrounded by her people. This is real.
But despite her fear and the new understanding of what it feels like to slip so close to death, Lexa remains calm, keeping her breathing even. It takes her until she sits up to realize what the darkness means, and then she panics, hands waving first in front of her face and then patting down the space around her (bodybag, metal platform, open space).
Blindness. They've taken her sight.
Lexa can't hold back the noise, the yelp of fury and fear that bubbles up inside her, but she stills immediately after as she realizes that she could attract attention and she wouldn't even know. Carefully, she swings her legs off the edge of the tray she was lying on, knocking something at her feet to the floor, squeezing her eyes shut like that can help her have a better understanding of her space. All it does is make the sound of her own galloping heartbeat sound louder in her ears.
It turns out her possessions are nearby: a quick inventory via touch tells her that it was her makeshift shiv that got knocked to the floor, and she's worried she'll cut herself trying to find it. A part of her feels frozen, like maybe if she just sits here long enough the darkness will recede from her sight and the world will start making sense again. Coping with this almost feels like too much, even for her. But long enough and she moves without volition, feels the vertigo of her body moving without her consent, forward to places she can't see. It doesn't stop until the cold winter air slaps her across the face, staining both girlish cheeks a bright pink, and the door clicks closed behind her.
Just like that, she's back at square one, and this time she won't even see death if it comes for her. But the chill restarts something in her, helps her find her determination again. Lexa lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and steps carefully back out into the world. ]
wanda maximoff | mcu - post aou (100% will be spoilers, sorry)
She doesn't wake up slow. It's not calm and languid, rolling around in warm sheets and burrowing into blankets, a luxury she only dreams of. She wakes up suddenly and all at once, jerking so violently to be free of the body bad that she tumbles off of the metal shelf, landing in a heap on her hands and knees, black plastic tangled around her ankles. The ground is so cold it feels like burning and she scrabbles to her feet, kicking out of the bag as she reflexively calls out for someone.
("Someone." As if she wakes to call out for more than one someone.)
It's for naught regardless of who she does or doesn't call out for, as she finds herself mute, a broken swan in the snow. Fingers contract and release by her sides, trying to will the magic back out of them for just a moment to reach out to someone, but much like her cries there is nothing to be found. It's like she's back there at the castle, waking up cold and alone and scared, without her other half.
The memories hit her and she slumps back down, drawing her knees to her chest and curling her arms around her legs protectively. Maybe she will wait, this time, ignoring the light from her tablet reflecting off the shelf. She will wait here.
Clint had woken up in this miserable place a few days before and had spent most of that time trying to figure out the how and why of it. Of course, there was nothing really to figure out and the archer had found himself merely trying to survive while dealing with the fact that, outside of network posts that occurred every now and then, he had yet to see another living person.
So imagine his surprise at finding someone, a familiar someone, in one of the rooms of the building he'd been sweeping.
"Wanda."
His bow hit the ground as he came to kneel before her, not reaching out just yet but the worry was there--the urge to check her over for injuries a hard one to fight.
TWO [The Will is stuck inside with Lying Cat curled around him for warmth, turning to the tablet and the network to try and distract himself from- well, from everything that he's seeing. His visions are alternatively horrific and pornographic depending on who he's hallucinating at the time and it's all kind of disturbing.]
you would think i would learn not to eat the native food
i keep seeing my dead ex.
who else is in this shit-ship with me?
THREE [Enjoying your cabin and your wood and your fireplace? You won't for long. A bald man in a blue cape shoulders the door open and invades without a care, his oversized hairless cat prowling in after him, sniffing at the ground.] After we get off this fucking planet, we're going somewhere warm-
[And that's about when he sees the other, and his eyes narrow. He reaches for a weapon he doesn't have, and Lying Cat slides into a defensive stance.] Clear out. Leave the food, or I'll feed you to my cat.
FOUR [You might find a bald man wrapped up in a cloak stumbling away from the morgue with a grayish blue, large hairless cat at his side. He's got his hand on her back and is currently trying not to run into anything - because he's missing his eyes. They're gone. Just like that. The third time he trips over something, he just lays there for a moment, saying out loud,]
You're the worst seeing-eye-cat in the entire fucksaken universe.
[Lying Cat just sits down primly and stares at The Will, brings a paw up to delicately lick snow from between her toes, and says in reply,] Lying. [Wait, did that cat just talk?]
[ The image that blinks onto the network is a little wobbly, as well as hard to make out. The room is dark, and the feeble light of a fire in the hearth isn't soaked up very well by the little camera recording the image. There's another light, a thin, wobbly finger of flame off a candle.
There's an empty chair. An old, faded rug. A fraction of a window. Nothing else.
The image shifts, like the person holding it is adjusting how they sit. Then finally, a voice, a prim English accent; ]
It doesn't feel any warmer in here, honestly. It's going to be a very long night of freezing my bollocks off and getting to live another day to do the same thing all over again.
[ If he's bitter, it's veiled rather well in dry humour. ]
Pressing question, though. What do you see?
[ Ostensibly, reference to the empty room. ]
Because I might be going mad.
THREE: AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
The fire has gone down low, a fistful of embers still burning away, and the heat has long since sapped out of the room. Cautious but unable to be completely quiet -- he can't quite feel his feet enough to be delicate in his foot falls, and the floorboards just creak like so -- Charles approaches the hearth, ducking down to hover a gloved hand over what little warmth there might be.
A poker is taken from beside the hearth, and he pokes at the dwindled remnants of fire, sparks stirring. With any luck, whoever was here last has moved on, and Charles can claim for himself a place to stay for a little while.
Of course, this isn't a place of good fortune.
At the first sign of another presence -- a foot step, a door open, even a voice -- he is on his feet, hand wrapping tighter around metal, eyes guarded, bright, wary.
[ The feed starts out a little uneven on her end, too, but when it settles he isn't treated to a view of another empty room. Instead it's a young woman, blonde hair and blue eyes, eyebrows lowered in a critical expression as she studies the video. ]
I see an empty room. What do you see?
[ She sounds concerned. Well, mostly concerned; she also sounds a tiny bit curious. And, almost as an afterthought, with very little inflection: ] Even if it doesn't feel warmer, it is. You'd be dead within a few hours outside.
[ She knows you were joking, she's just giving you a vaguely chastising downer of an answer anyway. This is a serious situation, quit making jokes. ]
To say Stannis is bothered by the situation wouldn’t even begin to cover it. He should be used to having to think quick and adapt to whatever gets on his path, and after years of having Lady Melisandre by his side have made him… well, not amenable to magic. He would never be completely amenable to something so dangerous. A two-edged sword, as Lord Snow had described it. But he had learned to expect the unexpected. But usually the unexpected involved fire, light-shows, people dying in mysterious ways. If the rumors were to be believed it also involved losing his fleet simply because he’d left Melisandre behind.
The unexpected certainly didn’t involve waking up in a strange land, full of strange people and even stranger devices on his pocket that won’t stop chiming. He ignores it.
His first thought had been that he had somehow ended up on the other side of the wall… but no. It didn’t feel right. Nothing about this felt right. After a couple hours wandering in every direction (the hand never leaving the hilt of his sheathed sword), he decides to enter one of the weird-looking houses. Inside, he finds a fire- and maybe he has spent too much time around Lady Melisandre because the sight of it is enough to make any weariness about the house disappear. He approaches, discarding the gloves to warm his fingers-
And then he hears a noise, and quickly turns around.
“Who else is there?” He doesn’t yell it. He doesn’t have to: he’s good at making his voice heard.
Renly isn't used to being alone, especially not alone in a strange land where it seems to be always cold. He never did like the North, and that's what this reminds him of - the North, perhaps beyond the Wall, but how in the world would he have gotten there? Last he knew, he was in his tent, in the middle of his blissfully safe camp, surrounded by loyal men (and women).
He's freezing and unused to being alone, to providing for himself just to survive. He considers it a lucky fortune that he's found a cabin, with wood and a few meager supplies. He's already made himself a fire, and drawn his fine green cloak tight about himself to try and keep warm (and oh, it seems like he will never be warm again, without Loras) when he hears the door open, and a figure approach his fire (and damn it all, it had taken a long time to build that fire up!)-
Renly grabs for a broken chair leg and raises it above his head to club the intruder, if he must, when he hears-
"...Stannis?" He must look a right fool, prepared to club his brother to death with a chair leg, and he slowly lowers it, but his grip tightens. Yeah, he's still thinking about whacking him...
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snowblindmemes2015-05-12 07:10 am
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