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- arknights: midnight,
- cobra kai: daniel larusso,
- ffxiv: elidibus,
- ffxiv: emet-selch,
- ffxiv: hythlodaeus,
- fgo: altria caster,
- genshin impact: alhaitham,
- genshin impact: kaveh,
- genshin impact: lyney,
- genshin impact: wanderer,
- library of ruina: angela,
- library of ruina: netzach,
- library of ruina: yesod,
- limbus company: don quixote,
- limbus company: hong lu
MONOLOGUE WITH THE MOON [open player event]
WHAT: You, your truths, masks to wear, and places to escape.
WHERE: All over and no where.
WHEN: 1/6/2024.
WARNINGS: Some uncomfortable visuals, but nothing blatant. Please add warnings in your subject lines as needed.
NOTES: Original plotting post here if you need to refer to it.
JUST ANOTHER DAY.
Just like any other. You follow your routine, however it may be. Mundane or not, thrilling or not, eventually there is the inevitability: you open a door, as you always have. Only, where it leads to is not what you expect at all. The door behind you is now closed, locked, and oddly indestructible; the path before you is dark and dismal, narrow, walls lined with ornamental golden doors.
Where could they possibly go?
VISUALS:
JUST ANOTHER MASK.
The door that you decide upon brings you a room, if it can be called that. Like the hallway before, it feels cramped and too narrow, too dark and dingy. Largely it is utterly unremarkable, save for a particularly specific feature: there are shelves and baskets full of masks. Not just any masks, of course, but of faces you know all too well. They bear the faces of your fellow citizens of the city, the detail impressive and uncomfortably uncanny.
Should you put on one of the masks, you will find yourself in one of two situations: either you and the person whose mask you wear end up sharing thoughts, or you hear the thoughts of the person whose mask you wear. It is possible to take these masks with you, but know after all is said and done the strange power that comes with these masks bear will fade.
VISUALS:
JUST ANOTHER MEMORY.
We all have parts of ourself we want to forget, to hide away from. Maybe a mistake we made, a cruel experience you didn't deserve -- or perhaps, something cruel by your hand? Remembering your first kill, a bad break-up, or an unfortunate incident with a seesaw? Either way, the truth of you will be laid bare before others, in some capacity. This is your room, or this is someone else's. Either way, it is here, and the curtains are drawn for the play.
This room is entirely catered to a character's memory, be it yours or somebody else's. It can be any unpleasant memory, because really why would anything nice ever happen right now? The room can function however feels most appropriate to you. Either the scene can be played like a movie projected on a screen, or it can be participated in as if you were really there. It can be as accurate as possible, or it can be as twisted by your character's fears and anxieties as much as you feel is appropriate. Bear in mind the term "room" is used in the loosest sense possible, as really this area does not abide by any laws of physics or realism, after all.
VISUALS:
JUST ANOTHER ROOM.
When a person dreams or has a nightmare, how rarely it ever seems to make sense. Memories, after all, can be skewed by time and reflection; when we sleep, the experiences our minds come up with can be average to terrifying. And thus, that is what you can make of this room: a living nightmare of all your insecurities, and no door dares open so easily for you. How can you hope to escape from yourself?
Welcome to the worst escape room, where you need to figure out how to free yourself from what binds you. Think of it less as a memory and more as everything that makes you uncomfortable and your skin crawl boarding you inside, and you need to find a way out. Maybe you need to find some keys, or a solve a series of puzzles. Hopefully the person stuck with you can lend a hand?
VISUALS:
JUST ANOTHER DOOR CLOSING.
Like all things, it ends, whatever has brought on this nightmare. But you will always wake from your dreams, won't you? And eventually, that next door brings you back to where you've been staying in the City. As good as any home? Perhaps your bonds of friendship and love have increased as a result...
Or are you the kind of person to end up crushed by what has already been haunting you like an abandoned house?
no subject
no subject
More than that, actually, he knows exactly which complex this is. The stream they're walking next to seems to head towards the complex. And in the distance, there stands a man. A familiar one to both of them. It is in fact the very same man who walks behind Midnight, though instead of the white and blue outfit, this version of the drifter dons a black, purple and red outfit.
This is his memory, the Wanderer realizes, and Midnight is about to see one of the atrocities he committed.
Once the pair get close enough, the memory of the Wanderer speaks, almost on cue. 'Fifty years... how little time it takes to destroy a long standing, proud swordsmith clan.' There is a package in the water in front of him. It's leaking some sort of substance which quickly disappears into the waters rushing towards the complex in the distance. ]
sorry about the wait, i've been sick for the past week!
He turns to stare at the young man for a moment, then turns away and walks along the riverside, ignoring the package in the water. He'd like to see if he has any power to leave his past alone.
It's unsuccessful, of course. He simply encounters the same package, the same young man, but approaches them from the opposing direction. He sighs. No escaping this, then.
He closes his eyes, then opens them, looking at the real version of the young stranger with him. Paying as little attention as possible to whatever narrative this place has to tell. ]
no problem! i hope you're feeling a lot better now! <3
A bit like Kaveh, aren't you? He pretended not to see what the city exposed of me either.
thank you, i'm doing a lot better! just buried under tags :|b
Kaveh often says we're cut from the same cloth. He's a fool.
[ He doesn't say it fondly, exactly, but the edge to the word is blunted by the fact that Midnight agrees. It would be hypocritical not to see the parallels. ]
i am also buried under tags...
[ The Wanderer repeats in agreement. And now, knowing of Midnight's similarity with Kaveh, he feels somewhat remorseful for the stunt he pulled earlier. So he tosses Midnight's mask at the man. ]
Take it. That way no one else can use it.
and i fell off the internet (again), it's all good
There are millions of people like you in the world, boy. I can't protect myself from all of them.
[ ... Still with the "boy", even with vague evidence that he might be far older than that. Midnight looks at the boy, then turns, staring at the sky instead of the river, or the scene still unfolding next to him, or his small companion. ]
Tell me what happened in your own words. I don't care about what this city thinks the truth is. I want yours.
same though... we're both good at this
Millions out there, but less than a hundred here.
[ In this trapped lab cage of a city, that is. He might be one of the few who had any unfriendly intentions with Midnight's mask, brief as it was. Besides that, it's just a matter of privacy.
Tell me what happened in your own words, Midnight says, and he has to laugh a little at that. He really is like Kaveh, who only wanted to hear the truth from the Wanderer himself, and never from what the city put on display. ]
The memory would explain far better than I, but if you insist.
[ The shade of the Wanderer turns at this moment, ambling down the side of the stream, towards the complex in the distance. The real one walks up to the leaking package in the stream and stares at it as he speaks. ]
There was once a swordsmithing clan that prided itself on using exceptional materials to produce their swords. Their tradition called on a focus in understanding the elements used in forging a sword. Water, fire, and steel. In attuning with the elements would one be able to produce an excellent blade.
[ He crouches down to run his fingers in the water. It is pure and clear—water that would likely be suitable for this swordsmithing clan, if it were not for the little package leaking an unknown substance into the stream. But the water still remains pure and clean after the substance has been dissolved. Visually, it would be difficult to tell the water had been tampered with. ]
It wasn't an easy task to pollute this stream without catching their attention. But it seemed... boring, to do away with this clan like I had with the others. Trickery, deceit, unexplained deaths... No, I wanted to see if I could ruin them solely through their own work.
[ He doesn't even try to sugarcoat that he was trying to destroy an entire clan, but that was part of the path he decided to take. He would not hide his sins. ]
we'll get there... climbing this whole mountain...
Midnight looks over briefly, but the story doesn't seem done. He doesn't have many questions, anyway. ]
Go on.
Slowly inching up this mountain... Wheezes
Would they be let out of the memory of he simply explained it all? This could be a test, he thinks. ]
There isn't much more to the story than this. I didn't tamper with just the water. The steel, and even the fire—I wanted to see if they could figure out what was going on before their clan declined into obscurity.
[ He stands back up and turns to Midnight, trying to gauge the other's reaction to the story so far as he continues. ]
They did, a few times, but ultimately, it only took fifty years for the clan to fall apart from internal strife that arose in their desperation. Pathetic. To think this was all it took to break apart a family.
[ There's something in the way he intones the word family that suggests he has some thoughts about the concept. It's coloured with bitterness and vindictiveness. ]