Go Fish: Trauma Edition

[idolpro]

Who: Naughty little fishes
Where: Game Tower
When: Day 527


[So there you are, minding your own business on a completely normal day.]

[Then you blink —



[— and find yourself, and many other idols, in an unfamiliar room.]

[The room is large and round and made of glass, like a globe. ...No, like a fish bowl.]

[On the other side of the glass walls, you can see indistinct shapes moving around, but the glass distorts the light so much that anything farther than arm’s length is just vague smears of colors and shadow blending with your own reflection. But something is there. Possibly a lot of somethings. ]

[Two formless shapes approach the glass, and as they do, their images resolve into the shapes of a pair of twins, one grinning while the other pointedly looks away from his brother. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the one who actually looks cheerful about being here is the first to speak up:]

Guess what~? You’ve been chosen to play in our very first game. Isn’t that exciting?

[He throws his arms out theatrically.]

Especially after soooo many boring games. The audience is looking for excitement and thrills here! Why not take the chance to really cement yourself as the fan favorite while you have the chance? Heck, it might even fix your little... “problem.”

[There’s a beat of silence, and he moves to elbow his brother who shoots him a “hey what the hell?” look before reluctantly facing the gathered idols.]

...Make sure you protect yourselves. Otherwise...

[He just lets the thought trail off before looking away again. His brother leans on him, resting an elbow on his shoulder as though waiting for him to continue before finally giving up and shaking his head with a sigh.]

You heard him! Give this game all you’ve got - got it?

Comments

Rules

[idolpro]

This is a card game that will last three rounds. The object of the game is to collect pairs of cards (Go Fish style) and end the game with no unpaired cards remaining in your “hand.”

At the beginning of the round, each team will be dealt 5 cards. Each card will have the name of a punishment.

If a team gets two cards with the same punishment, they get a point and that pair of cards is removed from play. Of their remaining cards, they may OPTIONALLY send UP TO THREE cards to ANY other teams. They do not have to send any cards if they choose not to.

At the beginning of the next round, teams will first receive the cards that were sent to them by other teams, and then be dealt more cards as necessary until they once again have five cards in their possession. (Note: If a team has been sent many cards from other teams, it is possible for them to wind up with more than 5 cards.)

At the end of the third round, teams will have one final chance to make pairs out of whatever cards have been sent to them during round 3, but any unmatched cards in their possession at the end of the game will be the punishment that team shall endure.

The team that gets the most points will be spared from their punishments.
The team that gets the least points will be executed via the punishments described on their card(s).
The team that neither wins nor loses will be tortured via their punishments within an inch of their lives.

Powers are on, however, the environment is completely immune to unit abilities or any other sorts of damage.

Rooms

[idolpro]

[There’s a faint vibration in the floor, and a distant rumbling that sounds like it’s getting closer.]

[Abruptly, glass dividers slice upward through the floor and split the room into four quadrants, separating the idols into groups. For a moment, you can all see and hear each other on the other sides of the glass, just enough long enough to see in each other's eyes and call each other's names.]

[But it's only for a moment. With a sharp CLACK, the lights in the other rooms go out. Suddenly you can no longer see nor hear the other idols. It is as if everything outside your own chamber has suddenly ceased to exist, cutting you off from everyone and everything that isn’t in this room with you.]

[Everyone has been divided into one of the four chambers:]

sensitIV / Heart Soldier Senshi
future is now / WILD CITY / ☆ZRAEL / pep!pep!
AlcheME! / avante en garde
BAD END=DEAD END / LiliS

Pre-game mingle

[idolpro]

[Welcome, fishies!]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[gemuinemanagement]

...I don't like the sound of this at all.

Re: Pre-game mingle

[happydreamed]

Why does 'excitement' usually mean 'pain'...?

Re: Pre-game mingle

[ergospheric]

HOSTS

[not_that_sasuke]

[The twins are here to talk to, too! You can talk to red or grey or even both!]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[bondsofsuffering]

There goes my streak...

[Ughhh. Well, he's still dressed in some WC/BEDE combo, so. This is fine.]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[threatmewted]

That last game was pretty easy.

Re: Pre-game mingle

[numberedays]

Ah.

[Hm. Well, it will probably be fine.]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[heavyliesthecrown]

So passing on the honor isn't an option, is it?

[ He'd love to sit it out. ]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[at_heart]

[ Disappointed But Not Surprised. ]

Right, of course. The only thing that could've made things worse.

Re: Pre-game mingle

[paradiseunboxed]

[currently dressed in a classy avante ensemble, though within a few minutes it'll shift to another unit's aesthetic, and then another's, and then another's, never never quite settling down. but forget about that. Honey is walking up the walls and pressed his face against it, trying to peer outside. what's going on out there.]

Re: Pre-game mingle

[carrionmywaywardsun]

Excitement, huh. Three guesses what that means and the first two don't fucking count.

Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[idolpro]

It's dark. Your world is engulfed in darkness. You feel whatever unit abilities you have fade away into powerlessness.

With a CLACK, the light flashes on again, illuminating the chamber containing BAD END=DEAD END and LiliS.

Except this time, they are chained by the ankles to large cinder blocks on the glass floor.

As if a flood gate has opened, a raging column of water pours into the room from above. The water churns up their legs, past their waists, up their chests, to their chins. All attempts to pull their legs free or claw at the glass walls are in vain as they gasp what might be their last breaths and sink below the surface.

They may struggle, gasp, hold their breaths, but it's no use - eventually they all inhale water just the same. As soon as it appears they may be slipping out of consciousness, the waterline dips and they can stand on their own feet again, to cough and gag and catch their breath just in time for the next wave.

And then, the lights go out again with a CLACK.

...

Moments pass in silence, and then the lights flash back on again.

CW: STARVATION, highlight to view

Except this time, something is different. This time, there is no water. There are no cinderblocks. Just the idols in an empty glass room. But it almost seems as if their motions are faster... almost as if time is accelerated in their room alone.

From the outside, it looks like watching a time-lapse of people trapped in a room with no exits as they pace around the room and claw at the glass walls in fast-forward. Their words come out so quickly it’s almost impossible to understand.

But from the inside, the onlookers seem trapped in stasis. What seems like minutes, hours, and days go by, and yet they barely move at all, even to blink or breathe.

The flow of time is so discrepant that, in what seems like the span of just a few minutes for the onlookers, those inside the room start wasting away. Their muscles shrivel, leaving their bones pronounced under their skin; their eyes and cheeks become sunken; their clothes start hanging off of them in awkward ways.

Just when it seems like they may lose what little strength is left, the lights go out again with a sharp CLACK.

Moments pass in silence, and then the lights flash back on again.

CW: GORE, highlight to view

Except this time, time is back to its normal flow. Some of their health seems restored somehow, as perhaps the time was rewound to a state before they became so thin.

Instead of water, instead of a rush of advancing time, there are chains hanging from the vast and unknowable ceiling. And at the end of those chains are meat hooks, through which the idols dangle from their pierced wrists.

No amount of screaming, squirming, or writhing is enough to stop the sawblades on mechanical arms that descend from above to strategically slice and cut the flesh from their bone, slow and precise.

But don't worry -- though the sawblades may be systematically disassembling them, it's long before they reach anything vital thatthe lights go out for a final time.

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[bondsofsuffering]

[Oh cool it's one of these games cool cool cool.]

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[threatmewted]

[She's silent for once, though she does cringe at the butchery.]

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[sangreine]

[ Just fully sobbing here, of course it's consecutive and not at once ]

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[gravitydefier]

[whatever sounds of pain he does make are very quiet, probably barely even audible. when his normal baseline of "agony" from his memories is way more awful than this, when the magnitude of the bad karma he had accumulated was enough to consume flesh, bone, and soul alike...

that just says way too much about his pain tolerance and what he's used to.]

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[happydreamed]

[Silently watches, fists tight at his sides. He can't do anything for them, but they deserve at least to be witnessed.]

Re: Endgame intermission, part 1: CW Starvation, vague gore

[heavyliesthecrown]

[ No... No no no no no no no no!! PLEASE! Not his senior... not Emu! Banging at the glass separating them, he desperately strikes it over and over again. But of course it doesn't budge. It doesn't do anything as he cries and beats at it with his fists and feet and entire body. ]

Please--! Please just stop it! STOP-!

[ Eventually, he sinks down along the glass onto his knees. They were who he wanted to protect most of all, and yet... ]

Special Bonus Event | CW: starvation, body horror

[carrionmywaywardsun]

[I'm a bit unsure of the CWs so here's a brief summary of what's planned for the thread. Highlight to read: Valor will attempt to mercy kill Faith by snapping his neck, but it doesn't work. Faith will finish the starvation phase with his neck broken but not dead.]

[Sometime during the starvation portion of the intermission, after enough time's passed for everyone to really start feeling the effects, Valor will wander over to wherever Faith is, looking unusually serious.]

Hey, Faith. You awake?

Endgame intermission, part 2, CW: BODY HORROR

[idolpro]

It's dark. Your world is engulfed in darkness. You feel whatever unit abilities you have fade away into powerlessness.

With a CLACK, the light flashes on again, illuminating the chamber containing Heart Soldier Senshi and sensitIV.

Except this time, they, too, are chained by the ankles to large cinder blocks on the glass floor.

As if a flood gate has opened, a raging column of water pours into the room from above. The water churns up their legs, past their waists, up their chests, to their chins. All attempts to pull their legs free or claw at the glass walls are in vain as they take their last breaths and sink below the surface.

They may struggle for a moment, but it doesn’t last. It’s only once the only motion in the tank is their lifeless bodies swaying back and forth as the water settles that the lights finally go out again.

Moments pass in silence, and then the lights flash back on again.

Except this time, there's a TIGER just kidding. Actually, there isn't anything in this room at all, save for several very soggy and bedraggled idols. They appear (and, in fact, are) very dead. At least, at first. Their eyes flutter open, and they retch the water out of their lungs.

(CW: Body horror, highlight to view)

For a moment, everything seems perfectly normal. Until, very abruptly, it's not. They suddenly feel an intense, tearing sensation in their chests, and the most horrific pain. It feels like roots worming through their muscles; like thorns piercing their veins and tangling in their joints; like branches cracking their ribcages apart and bursting through from the inside out.

There is nothing they can do about it. It’s growing from inside them, choking their lungs with brambles, foliage spilling out of their mouths. It's unholy and wretched and takes way, way too long for them to die.

It’s only once the branches that burst from their bodies swell into trunks, spreading their branches into a glistening canopy of red-limbed leaves, that all is silent, and the lights go out once again with a CLACK.

Re: Endgame intermission, part 2, CW: BODY HORROR

[happydreamed]

[He screams when the plants start bursting out of him, until he can no longer manage enough air to do that and he simply chokes on vines and blood.




They didn't even get to fight a tiger. What the fuck.]

Endgame intermission, part 3

[idolpro]

It's dark. Your world is engulfed in darkness. You feel whatever unit abilities you have fade away into powerlessness.

With a CLACK, the light flashes on again, illuminating the chamber containing AlcheME! and avante en garde.

Except this time, there are big flaxen ropes laying strewn all over the floor.

But then, the ropes begin to move. They slither like snakes, twining across each other and up the legs and arms of the idols. No amount of clawing or fighting seems to bother them at all, as they swiftly coil their way up arms and chests and tighten around throats. And then they begin to squeeze.

Faces turn red and then to purple as the idols slowly, ever so slowly, choke and gasp for air, tangled in knots they can’t undo. It’s not until the last of their struggling stills and their eyes go slack and sightless that the lights finally go out again.

Moments pass in silence, and then the lights flash back on again.

Except this time, there are no ropes, save for the ones lashing each of their corpses to their own massive wooden stakes with a pile of firewood beneath their feet.

It takes a moment for the life to return to their vacant expressions. It's enough time for them to come to and get a grasp of their situation.

It's not long before small licks of flame in the kindling quickly start to catch in the dry timber. The heat of the smoke alone scorches their lungs and eyes well before the fire catches in their clothes and starts to consume them.

No amount of thrashing or fighting is enough to escape their bindings or stop the flames as it eats ever deeper into their flesh, consuming them alive. It takes so long. The screaming goes on and on.

It’s not until their cries have been lost into the raging conflagration and smell of burning meat that the lights finally go out again.

Re: Endgame intermission, part 3

[gemuinemanagement]

[okay well this sucks

but unit abilities going back off means he can't scream so like

fuck you guys. you don't get the satisfaction of that. he closes his eyes and waits for it to end.]

Endgame

[idolpro]

The lights come on with a sharp CLACK, not just in one chamber, but in all of them.

The glass barriers that separate everyone slide back into the floor, returning the four chambers to their original singular room. The wounded and dead remain where they are, and remain wounded and dead.

The whole circular floor begins to move -- lowering, revealing itself to be an elevator. It gently, quietly, slides its way downward, until it reaches a very ordinary-looking pair of elevator doors. They slide open, allowing you into the game tower lobby.

Powers return. But WHAT powers have returned, exactly? And to whom?

Future is now, WILD CITY, ZRAEL, and pep!pep! each get 800 points. Congratulations!

Everyone else gets 100 points, and must take at least one status effect from each punishment they endured. This will last at least 3 days for BEDE and LiliS, and at least 1day for everyone else.

Talk to Twin #1

[not_sasuke]

[He seems... displeased.]

Stubborn...