Catharsis or Full Circle?

[lovesock]

The foggy world of Silent Hill is a mysterious town sitting on the shores of the beautiful and enigmatic Toluca Lake in Maine, USA. It's a small, local tourist town that's been built up over the years, complete with a resort and amusement park. From its description, one wouldn't think there was anything too wrong with the place. Except... Except that it tends to draw people in. And there, once you cross the border, you enter what's known as the Fog World, an abandoned town full of lurking terrors--or even worse, the Otherworld, a rusty and bloody world that is even more terrifying, warping the world. And each Otherworld is unique to the person who's arrived. Silent Hill will either make you or break you. Why not step into town to find out?

• Post your character. Please describe a bit of the stuff they'll encounter, if you'd like. Your monsters are going to be based on your character's psychology.
• Reply to others and explore the Fog World and Otherworld at your leisure. After all, you'll need all the help you can get.
• Below are optional prompts. Use them if you're lost or need an idea of what to tag with.

1. Arrival: You've just arrived to the sleepy town of Silent Hill. For some reason, the streets are missing in spots, the entire town is boarded up and no one native seems to be around anymore. But if you try to leave, you find there's no way to do so. It's as if Silent Hill's roads have crumbled into an abyss where they lead out of town.

2. First Encounter: You've somehow found some kind of radio or walkie talkie, or maybe you always had one, and some kind of improvised weapon. A pipe, a stick, maybe you've even found an actual wrench, but you're going to have to make due. Because here comes your first and most basic monster, ripped and warped from your fears and doubts and other repressed feelings.

3. Hit the Streets: Now that you're armed and have the convenient static of whatever radio-like-thing you have on you, it's time to explore. After all, you won't find an escape just standing around. But the town is a maze of broken streets and puzzles. Good luck.

4. Fog World Buildings: Eventually, your journey will lead you into a larger building. Or at least one big enough to take a little bit of exploring. And you'll find it's warped in its own way, with keys hidden here and there, and other doors jammed or locked. You'll have to fight your way through to the end.

5. The Otherworld: Eventually, in each explored large building, you'll hear a siren--like an air raid siren or something similar. And the world will peel back, dissolving into rust, blood and decay. Now things are serious. Each Otherworld is tailored to each person, and will force you to steadily face something. And when you're done with the location, you'll find yourself back in the Fog World. ...If you even survive long enough.

6. Catharsis: One of the two possible endings of Silent Hill's lessons. If you've made it through, survived and come out the better, having learned and vented those repressed feelings, then the roads will allow you to leave. Maybe not your friend, though, so maybe that's something to worry about.

7. Full Circle: The other possible ending. If you didn't learn, then Silent Hill will never let you go. Fate will twist. You'll either never leave the town, or you'll suddenly find yourself reliving it or some other twist that will see you forced to face Silent Hill's fog all over again.

8. Beware UFOs: Every Silent Hill game has its gag ending, usually a UFO ending of some sort. So this is your obligatory conspiracy and ridiculous prompt. Have as much fun with it, go flying off into space, become a magical girl and banish the fog, whatever. This prompt is just to break it up and be silly.

9. Wild Card: There's all kinds of other things you could do in Silent Hill. After all, the Otherworld is your proverbial rotten oyster of repression.

Comments

Kuja | Final Fantasy IX | OTA

[fallen_stage]

[Kuja's Silent Hill is Identity Loss. Being aware of his own issues and made of iron, mere damage or revelation wouldn't hurt him. But attacking his very personhood would. The monsters share themes of conformity and deception, but seek to steal Kuja's memories, take control of him, or even steal his face. Alone, he is vulnerable to completely losing himself. With someone else, he has a chance of coming back even from total ego death.


crosscanon a welcome necessity! i figure limits on his magic are necessary because otherwise he'd just blast down every jammed doorway.]

Henry | Fire Emblem: Awakening | OTA

[carryon_crow]

[violent imagery and symbolism? sign me up!

Henry has a...lot of issues but it's not violence exactly that disturb them but emotional vulnerability and pain, and their distance from other humans. Any animalistic monsters evoke pity and sadness; all the humanoid ones are frightening, repulsive, and brutal. Since Henry always denies and channels their negative emotions through dark magic and violence, the revelation will be about acknowledging and expressing those emotions in healthier ways.

But there will still be plenty of gore. Because its Henry.]

Link | Legend Of Zelda | OTA

[reverse_changeling]

[if dark link was a whole town, most likely.

The specifics would vary depending on what game's link i wanna play, but recklessness and arrogance feature for all of them; the negative of the triforce of courage. Themes of loss and helplessness also would plague any Link, with puzzles that dont slot neatly into their experience.

I think OoT/MM link would suit the dark themes best, with identity and displacement being a big thing.]

Aerith Gainsborough | Final Fantasy VII | OTA

[planetdialup]

[Being a cause of guilt or whatever, let's have some fun with this.]

Hi. Also kinda 1 leading up to a few of the others? LET'S EXPLORE.

[drammaturga]

Do you know where we are?

[ Well, Aerith, it's not a voice you recognize. But sitting on a stone wall off to the side is... Someone who wasn't there before. She kicks her legs back and forth as she waits. ]

I haven't the faintest.

Buddy | Lisa The Joyful

[radostnaya_devushka]

[Given Joy hallucinations, this should not be new to her at all.]

robert angier, the prestige.

[danton]

[ Angier is obsessed with these supposed sightings of "mermaids" in Toluca Lake.

He swears one of them is his wife and tries to laugh it off like it's a joke but the edge of desperation in his laughter makes it evident a part of him truly believes.

And wants to dive in.

Please let him dive in. ]

vincent valentine | final fantasy vii | ota

[containing]

[ lbh this is already going to be a veritable carnival of horrors, so lets go all out ]

5

[sanephiroth]

[Sephiroth was more of a weapon than anything else he had managed to scavenged around here. It didn't seem to be a trap of Hojo's design but he couldn't put it past the scientist to come up with a mission like this. Another test. One of many.

He spots the figure in the distance before he hears him and is taking the first steps towards him when the sirens blared, making Sephiroth flinch from the disturbing sharpness of it all. And then the world changed, faded and twisted and red. The taste of blood was almost tangible.

He looked up and Vincent suddenly seemed to be much closer without either of them having moved. A VR landscape?]

Who do you work for?

[He asked. It wasn't a demand but it came from someone who was used to having his words heeded]

Sephiroth | FF7 (Crisis Core era) | OTA

[sanephiroth]

((Here there be monsters and loneliness and maybe some obsession if he's taken from Nibelheim. Voice testing warning.))

4!

[precept]

[ Whatever was happening, whatever was causing this, it’s pretty obvious there isn’t going to be any getting out of it so easily. Angeal had considered it possibly being a VR session gone rogue, but considering the last thing he remembers was having to yank Zack out of one? He can’t exactly say the idea holds water. Confirmed when attempting to abort the simulation doesn’t do much of anything. There isn’t even an option for it.

Attempting to call anyone hadn’t worked either. There was something... weird. Static, no matter the number. At one point noises that set Angeal on edge. So, really, that left only one option: to scout the area, see what he can find, never mind that his feet pull him to a building that looks exactly like the Shinra headquarters, but everything about it is wrong. Wrong angles, wrong light, just... wrong. The further in he ventured, the more obvious it became, including how empty it is, floor shattered, architecture seeming to sag a little. Half the doors don’t seem to work.

One strange looking keycard and several hallways that seemed eerily longer than they looked, rounding a corner just about makes Angeal jump clean out of his skin. At least for a moment. ]

Sephiroth.

[ There’s relief evident in Angeal’s voice. Of anyone he could have found rounding that corner, it’s good to find his friend. Angeal relaxes a little, approaching Sephiroth without hesitation. He’d like to think he’d be able to tell if Sephiroth was friend of foe. ]

You look all right. [ Not that Angeal doubted Sephiroth wouldn’t be. ] Any idea what’s going on?

Ignis Scientia | Final Fantasy XV |

[fairygodspecs]

[Wager a guess? A Silent Hill experience based on his anxiety and fears surrounding his responsibilities. What if his friends were gone? What if he failed Noctis? Darkness with no sense of the dawn, and corrupted creatures resembling either his friends in a tortured state, perhaps dying over and over again and he feels he failed to prevent it (he is an adviser) or the enemies he KNOWS are out there.]

Lt. Ellen Ripley | Alien/s | ota

[signingoff]

[ Voicetesting a bit; this would be great if she's right after movie 1 and thinks this is all a bullshit dream. ]

lenny busker | legion (fx) | ota

[holdthephone]

Tweek Tweak | South Park | ota

[tweeking]

Hi, Tweek! SP fan here!

[fairygodspecs]

[Sorry, you up for a Silent Hill meeting?]

Andrew Detmer | Chronicle | OTA

[strengthbeyond]

((OOC: warning for domestic abuse. Also voice testing.))

Carl Grimes | The Walking Dead | ota

[righthandkid]

[open to pretty much everything]

Scrooge McDuck | Ducktales 2017 | OTA

[richestduck]

((OOC: Psychological thriller, yaaaaas. Ironic given I want to write a Silent Hill-style story for Ducktales.))

((Scrooge's Silent Hill will reflect a lot of silence and isolation. The Fog World is particularly foggy and will swallow up most sounds and people within seconds of stepping away from each other. There is little light and almost no color in this world.))

((Monsters reflect the resentment he's felt towards everyone for decades: The creatures grasp and tear at him, trying to take everything from him before leaving him alone to care for his own wounds in the emptiness, reflecting how he perceives people only want to be around him for what he might give them. The forms are vaguely duck-shaped with long fingers ending in claws and massive mouths to devour. Boss monsters have direct relations to members of his family: For example, the boss for Fergus McDuck is larger-than-life and attacks with chain whips to not just strike him into going where it wants him to go but to drag Scrooge in to bite and drain his life force.))

((Scrooge's Otherworld looks as if all the polish has been removed, revealing just how ugly and crumbling everything is underneath. The foundation of this world is poor, so it shudders and threatens to collapse at random intervals. This reflects how on the surface Scrooge appears to have his life together when in reality he's deteriorating on the inside.))

p.t. barnum | the greatest showman

[phinuts]

[ Phineas will help you through your adventure no problem as long as you promise to join his circus if you two both make it. He's fairly charming, and he says it lighthearted enough that it probably sounds like a joke at first, but it absolutely isn't.

It's fine if you don't have any pre-determined talents. Danger can catalyse a lot of things -- and for all you know a talent or two might come alive before you know it.

And even if you didn't think it was a viable idea at first, spending time with Phineas and his care and his dedication to you sort of... has you re-thinking it. Maybe it won't be such a bad idea after all?

I am absolutely here for unhealthy dependencies (with Phineas being the one your character ends up depending on; he's really very nice!), eventual body horror/modifications as your character "changes" to develop an ability (and Phineas makes suggestions to truly "awaken the ability" and then carries those suggestions out), dubcon for said modification stuff, etc. Phineas himself has an unnaturally low body temperature and may display some erratic behaviour (i.e. going into trances) which your character is welcome to suspect or just help him get through because they like him so much. Also, he has this huge stab scar right through his chest hidden under the layers of his fancy ringmaster suit, the skin jagged and thin and ugly and the veins visible under them pure black.

If you haven't figured it out, Phineas is the main mind "controlling" Silent Hill and he does actually have some sway over the monsters that roam it! He's aware of this too and knows how to use it to his advantage, but keeps it secret so he can have another person joining his circus. The world becomes a fantasy, and you're more than you could ever be, 'cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open. \o/ (And you know you can't go back again to the world that you were living in 'cause you're dreaming with your YOU GET THE POINT.)

Another optional thing: tell me about your characters/link me to wiki or info pages so we can incorporate their fears into this as well! ]

[ingloriouslife]

[ooc: This is going to be a horror show. Welcome to your beast woman (werewolf). She is a warrior, who has survived brutal attack that left her family and friends dead and nearly killed her, but in surviving she has lost a sense of herself. Despite fighting her best, she feels she failed and is responsible for the others' deaths and so she self-exiled from her home community and drifts in her own darkness, and violently lashing out when triggered. She'd been both looking and resisting for finding a home, a sense of community, and herself again. Physically, she's strong and tough woman, psychologically she's broken and just barely holding it together. Issues: Survivor's guilt, PTSD, flashbacks/nightmares, violence, losing a sense of self.]

Nanu || Pokémon Sun & Moon || OTA

[ulaulakahuna]

[He's a hardened and experienced former Interpol agent-turned-cop, and he's good at hiding his emotions, but even this has him on edge. The monsters he sees have a major theme: mouths. Jagged and razor sharp teeth, multiple sets piled on top of one another, some found on the ends of appendages and where they don't belong even on the most humanoid of monsters. Loneliness and a sense of failure pervade the general atmosphere. The kinds of things he runs across that Silent Hill has helpfully provided as props for this nightmare are the bodies of the recently deceased, usually young women who look frighteningly familiar to him, having obviously been mutilated by the chomping and chewing monsters roaming the area.]

[And somehow, he's stuck with the faintest idea that someone, somewhere here is going to be swallowed up forever and disappear completely if he doesn't do something to prevent it. Yet, he's certain he came here alone.]

Oscar | Lupin The 3rd

[riveres]

[Monsters that represent sexual and emotional repression? Check. A practical mase of town square, where at any time one of those monsters could show up at a corner? Check. The fact many of monsters resemble himself or a certain female thief? Check.

It's just a great time all around. :D]

lauren blackwell | the blackwell legacy series

[ashtraying]

[ lauren is a medium from the 1970s (in her canon she can see ghosts and it's her job to help them crossover along with her spirit guide). she's also a chainsmoker and seriously miserable. have at her. ]

Savitar | The Flash OTA

[vivifier]

[ You know, when you die? You're supposed to just die. Or end up in some sort of speed force hell trap. This? This is not cute or fun or even just a bother. This place is awful and full of monsters, monsters that occasionally decide looking like warped versions of people he knows and has hurt would be just the best thing.

That and loud, loud air-raid sirens, fog and ground that sounds like shale when he walks on it.

Seriously, what the hell. ]

[potato_powerhouse]

[She has been through houses of the dead, returned remnants to the dust of the earth. Met a hundred lost souls and laid them to rest...

Or so she thought, so she desperately wanted to believe.

But here they all stand, the people she failed twisted together in masses of horrid flesh and filth. Groaning her name, smiling with too many teeth and no eyes.

The ones she hasn't but fears she will all are simply walls, backs turned to her...which really, would only be the smart thing to do. Abandon her, find a much better Warrior.

Even then, all she can do is move on and try not to shut down or cry, and give this place the satisfaction of her fear.]

---

[Alternatively, "Oh, they look like monsters to you?"]

Dr. Flug Slys | Villainous | OTA

[fightorflug]

[Yeahhh gonna be honest, there is at least a 90% chance this is his fault. Creating evil weapons makes this stuff happen. Going to offer a bit of a twist here and actually give tagger's control of the narrative/I'll respond to the terror's of YOUR muse's psyche, rather than describe Flug's; he will just very unwittingly be along for your terrible ride. So if you want someone to blame, shed light on the situation, or offer VERY CALM SUGGESTIONS abou-- DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT, HOW DID THAT COME FROM YOUR HEAD?!-- how to get through this nightmare realm he probably/might have created, oops Flug is your terrified man.]

Figured we start with 1 and see where we go?

[dontcallmedeku]

[The Black Hat Organization was something Izuku only recently found out about. He had found a card in his mail from the proprietor with a means of communication. He reached out, hoping to commission a new battle outfit that would work with his Quirk and against the powers of Class 1-A. He needed something that could take fire, ice, explosions, and electricity at least. He had met Dr. Flug for the consultation, only for one of the man's many experiments to suddenly turn on and open a portal that sucked them both through.

Midoriya slowly stood up and looked at the fog filled town they found themselves in. The villain looked over his shoulder at Flug, his eye wide.]

Where. Are. We? What did you do?

Zangetsu (Hollow Ichigo) | Bleach

[nameless_hollow]

[Monsters from a monster's mind. Can only end well. Nothing like beings that are made from the feelings of anger and being held back. And the fear of being unable to protect the one important thing. Good times.]

Clint Barton | MCU or 616

[weekend_avenger]

Foggy Nelson | AU Daredevil

[bestavocado]

[I'm not saying she got a letter from Matt post-Defenders and went to investigate but PROBABLY YEAH.]