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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
[ This is an immediate response from the Wanderer, no delay for thought. ]
You describe death like a reward after experiencing a long, fulfilling life. What of death when used to cut a life short, before it even has a chance to bloom? What purpose have we fulfilled when we die like that? Proved that we should have never existed at all?
You can undo our lives, but you can't undo that we once existed.
[ Funny how he's somehow arguing for the opposite of what he's always thought about himself. That he never should have existed. That his mother should have killed him immediately.
...he has a lot to think about, after this. ]
no subject
A crackle of static bursts briefly behind him, growing more intense by the second. Images of perfect green filter in through the cracks in the office's brick walls, brief. Fleeting. Born from noise and swallowed by it in an instant.
Another voice, half obscured, not the voice of the masked man before him, echoes in the room]
Tell me! -- you think -- right -- -rifice -- -ake of -- star?
[The anguished man continues, but his voice is swallowed by the static once more as green gives way to starry black, and platforms bleed through the angled patterns of the floor. In the corners of the room, out of the corner of one's eye, the horizon just barely reveals the curve of the world.
And with it comes the feeling of being bound, limbs held tight. Helplessness.
The voice of the man from before breaks through once again, but there is anger in his voice. Anger, conviction, and perhaps... a hint of despair.]
-- we ourselves -- -awed -- stand to reason -- we too should be -- --scarded?
[Static roars to a crescendo and dies, taking the voice and image away with it, until Wanderer is left once more in a normal office recreated from memory, the world in motion once more.
And the masked man speaks.]
You remind me of someone.
no subject
He struggles for a moment, but—right, this is just a memory, he's not in true danger—and relaxes as the voice speaks again. 'Stand to reason.... we too should be... discarded?'
And then it's all gone, and time is flowing normally again. The masked man speaks as if none of that happened.
What was that...? He doesn't respond immediately, trying to puzzle out that short experience. ]
...maybe that someone has brought up the same concerns.
no subject
no subject
[ The next part is in a quiet mutter, meant to be inaudible to the masked man. ]
...just as she'd thought for me.
[ He didn't think he'd ever forgive his mother for abandoning him. He still doesn't. But her choice to let him live? Maybe she knew what she was doing after all. ]
no subject
Would you care to sit with me?
no subject
Wordlessly, he accepts the invitation. He makes his way over to the table and chairs and—right. He's a bit small like this, isn't he? But he finds a way onto the chair and sits, eyes on the masked man as the drifter observes his next move. ]
no subject
You seem surprised--though I cannot say I blame you. Let's just say that moment of yours has... made this less of a memory and more of a mind.
[He laughs again, hiding it behind his cup.]
Though I myself should have realized it long ago. After all, you are hardly a three-headed, multi-limbed shark.
no subject
He raises an eyebrow. Three-headed shark? ]
Just what kind of idiocy are the people of your world getting up into?
[ Despite all he said earlier about all creations being deserving of life... Yeah, okay, a three-headed shark with multiple limbs is kind of ridiculous. Does that even work? Would a creature like that have a good life??? ]
no subject
You're not wrong! Though I would not put it like that myself.
A particularly well-regarded shark was created some time ago, and ever since it has become the "fashion" to try one's hand at making their own. Unfortunately, fresh spins on the subject are beginning to run a bit thin, and here I am, the unfortunate soul who has to go through them all.
[He cocks his head to the side.]
'Tis not always easy, but some decisions come quicker than others.
no subject
He would not have lived in a world like that.
But now that he's calmed down, and the tone of the conversation has changed, he doesn't find himself holding it against the masked man and his brethren. Tools are tools. They should be useful. He was just lucky to be allowed to live his life as he pleased after fulfilling his purpose, that's all. ]
So your job is to evaluate people's creations?
[ A world of creators and creations... he's curious, he has to admit. ]