dramatispersonae | ♫ jasper ♫

♫ jasper ♫

You're in a sumptuous room, with rich brocade in your team colors and fine appointments in copper and marble that should look bright and beautiful -- but everything is dusty and grey, with a furtive, abandoned air. This is a place that's been locked away for a long time. It feels as if it would be sad to linger here for long.

Fortunately (perhaps), after one good look at the room, you catch a brief, pained snatch of melody. Your vision goes dark, and you immediately find your mind somewhere else-- ♫

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For the first round, your character will be locked into a vivid waking nightmare (with which they can hopefully identify) for three comments! Your character will know to some extent that it's a dream, as one does sometimes in lucid dreams -- however, this shouldn't prevent the character from being affected by and reacting to the scenario. Our goal is a deeply unpleasant experience rather than outright trauma, so please use your judgment on how much immersion versus a sense of unreality from being in a dream you need to play with to get that outcome!

You can play with characters reacting to the scenario any way you want - have them interact with each other as if they're all going through what's being described together as a group, or have each person interact with it separately, or whatever - as you and your team prefer. (If you’re coming in late, you can just react individually to the scenario comments and then jump in wherever your team is playing! The rest of the game won’t make much sense otherwise.) After your team has finished reacting to each comment, let your gamerunner know that you're done so the next one (and then the next round, when the dream is over) can be unscreened.

Once the nightmare is over, teams will be free to discuss and answer a series of questions.

Teams will be running at their own pace without inter-team interactions, so please pace yourselves accordingly as a group to make sure you don’t run overtime! We’ll be cutting off all teams at the 5-hour mark (9:30 PM PST/12:30 AM EST).

You're standing in a garden, but you can't see the shape of anything around you. A thick, ominous mist crawls low over the ground, obscuring your vision. You feel a faint, far-off tug -- should you be worried? Should you move your stiff limbs, explore, try to understand? No… it's fine. You're comfortably rooted here, and slow complacency descends, smothering that tiny voice. Your arms feel too heavy to move as a dark shadow rises before you in the grass, as you hear someone's startled breath behind you. You're nearly sick to your stomach, but it's a sleepy feeling, any pang of urgency smothered by lassitude. Why move, again?

[Oh joy, it's like being in the Darkness again. For me, this is repeating that time I was in the darkness, so... For some reason I'm sitting now? And trying to take off my headband. That's how it happened in the past, right...?]

Edited 2014-04-14 00:19 (UTC)

[this isn't really what I was expecting... this isn't bad at all tbh?? he just stands there for a bit, confused as to what he should even be doing

...but then something kicks in in the back of his brain NO NO NO NO what the fuck am I doing just standing around here! he tries to move his limbs almost violently, overcompensating against the feeling of lethargy]

It's fine, it's fine-- your visitor, the richly dressed prince, passes you all unheeding as he draws his sword. The mirror-bright reflection of the metal as he faces the dark shadow shows you that you're actually stone, but you still can't force yourself to feel alarm, to try to change or affect this situation at all. The mirrored blade catches your eyes, beautiful and sharp and golden. How lovely it is. Why is a part of you screaming at what you see? It’s fine...

[...I would screech if I were physically capable of it. The mirror, the mirror, the mirror's reflecting... a statue? Wait, if the reflection's a statue, that means... Actually, what does it mean? Am I a darkness thing now? Or wait, the reflection is. Which means the real me is a statue, and I'm... not...?

I feel so confused.]

[what!!!!

I'M ALARMED BUT I'M NOT ALARMED... screaming internally but everything is fine...

still trying uselessly to move even though he can't properly summon concern.]

The prince falls with a cry that would have wrenched your stomach, once upon a time. . . but you don't mind. Even when he too stiffens as stone creeps up his limbs, halting his desperate struggles, even when you can see the whole of your monstrously twisted form eternally reflected in his blank, mirrored eyes. . . oh, that's not the way you thought you looked. There's one last moment of panic-- but it’s all fine.

The shadow smiles.

[...Okay, this is pretty terrible to me, yes. You had a sword to kill me with and you didn't kill me with it? And it was a mirror that was showing the real me and not me and now I'm just spending eternity staring at the real me that isn't me?

Well, it's all fine, I suppose. Does that mean I'm dead yet?]

[EVERYTHING IS WRONG BUT IT'S FINE.

what is the point of even having a consciousness if I can't do anything with it. can't I just turn my brain off until I get to the point where I'm not trapped. that's ok right. that definitely will not lead to me just being trapped forever and even if it does that's ok I guess.]

You wake up sitting securely in one of the luxurious abandoned chairs. You're feeling sore and ill, pained from the affereffects of whatever happened -- but it's all the ghost of a reaction, fading slowly.

Firebird's voice floats through the air on another brief melody. She sounds exhausted, as tired and sick as you are.

"So what would you do, if such a thing came to pass? After all of your fears came true?"

[B... BRISTLES INTENSELY]

That was not—that was not presenting us with anything to overcome. That was completely removing our ability to act!

♪ instructions ♪

round 1 ♩

first

Re: first

no subject

second

Re: second

Re: second

third

Re: third

Re: third

round 2 ♩

discussion

Re: discussion

decision

Re: decision

round 3 ♩

discussion

Re: discussion

decision

round 4 ♩

discussion

decision

result ♮

...