dramatispersonae | ♫ emerald ♫

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).

Something is wrong. Your teammates are in distress (a bad game you weren’t there for; a bad memory you didn’t help them take; an attack from the Darkness that injured them that you couldn’t help with -- the list goes on. How many times have you not been there to support them lately? Too many.) You hover around the edges of their circle, feeling shut out and angry at them for it, hot with anger at yourself for being angry at them -- it was your fault you couldn’t be there after all; that you couldn’t help.

You call out to them, but they don’t answer; they just put their hands over their ears, faces contorting into pained expressions.

[since calling out to them isn't working he's sort of reflexively looking around for something to punch]

[balling up a fist, but not moving beyond that]

What is this?

Because of me--?

[ sinks to her knees, wrapping her arms around herself ]

[...

reaching out to try to catch someone's attention. it's never too late to help, and anyway, even if it is... any attempt, any at all, is better than just letting things stay like this]

You call out louder and your teammates shriek, digging their fingers into their ears, blood starting to well up where their fingernails press into their flesh. You recoil in surprise and then try again, reaching for just one of them this time, to take their wrists and coax them to draw their hands away. Your hands pass straight through their flesh and they scream, their flesh blackening where you touched, as though you are made of nothing but heat and agony.

Gasping with panic, you grapple with them--why can’t you hear me? why can’t I touch you? why is this happening?!--and their flesh continues to burn and blacken. They scream and scream and finally topple over and lie still. The rest of the team backs away in slow horror.

[they're not the only ones looking on in horror

doesn't even know. how to react. just stares at where the person collapsed, shrinking back and crossing his arms to keep from... making things worse. and reminding himself: not real, not real, not real, not happening.]

[looks up at the team] It's not what it - I didn't mean -

[shaking his hand out, this is too strange]

Is that how it is.

[ what the balls.

She screams, too, dry-heaving at the over-the-top grotesqueness of it, and covers her eyes, sobbing quietly ]

The teammate you hurt doesn’t get up, doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. The rest of them ring that teammate, their expressions dull with horror. Some of them are crying now, the soft tired kind of crying that means nothing is left but ache and despair.

Your own body is leaden, slack with shock. You grow aware of a dark brooding form in the background of this scene. It’s been there all along, watching you. It has judged you, and you have failed in its eyes, and in your own heart you cannot deny its judgment.

[biting down a shout, strained as he speaks]

Are we done here?

Re: third

galacticfairy - 2014-04-14 00:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: third

cerealpunner - 2014-04-14 00:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: third

defenceservice - 2014-04-14 01:12 (UTC) - Expand

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?"

♪ instructions ♪

round 1 ♩

first

Re: first

Re: first

Re: first

Re: first

second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

Re: second

third

Re: third

round 2 ♩

discussion

decision

round 3 ♩

discussion

decision

round 4 ♩

discussion

decision

result ♮

...