badfeyth: (📚 and saying that's the way)
Ghost ([personal profile] badfeyth) wrote in [community profile] citylogs2024-01-13 03:30 pm

[closed]

WHO: Ghost ([personal profile] badfeyth), Reno ([personal profile] astraphilia) , Johanna ([personal profile] keepgodwaiting) , Lestat ([personal profile] perfectdevil) , Alhaitham ([personal profile] justscribing) , and Kaveh ([personal profile] fussiest) .
WHAT: The "Monologue With The Moon" player plot!
WHERE: [emphatic shrug]
WHEN: 1/6/24
WARNINGS: Possible references to murder, violence, related dark themes, medical equipment, Omelas Kid™ Scenarios, shady institutions and their operations, etc.

You are standing in a nondescript, space-age sort of room; the walls are a silver metal so polished that you can almost see shadows of a reflection in it, and the floor is likewise sturdy and reinforced. There are two Star Trek-style sliding doors leading out of the room, one on the left wall and one on the right. Both are currently in open position, enabling you to see out into the corridor beyond; it looks pretty much the same out there as your surroundings in here. Maybe there are doors; you'd have to look closer to check.

Currently in the room with you is a pretty normal-looking wooden podium that's clearly seen some use (though in what ways, you'd have to look more closely at it to determine), and a very abnormal-looking escape portal that's just kind of floating in midair, definitely big enough for even a very tall human to walk through, but for the fact that it's behind an impenetrable forcefield. You're welcome to hurl yourself at this, hit it, whatever, all that you want, but unfortunately it ain't budging under any method currently available to you or your party.

Really, your circumstances look something like this:

The other thing you might notice is that your clothes have received a slight glam-up, in the sense that clipped to a pocket, lapel, belt loop, or other convenient area of your attire is some sort of ID card. That might be worth having a look at.

Speaking of having a look at things, maybe you ought to look around?
justscribing: (❖ 71)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-14 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
What's your assessment of this place's architecture? Besides that it's ugly. [Because he knows, Kaveh, he knows you'll think it's ugly.]
fussiest: (pic#16842588)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-14 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ kaveh makes a face. ]

Aside from obvious aesthetic considerations - do you remember the ferris wheel, Alhaitham?

[ that door that had swung open. the rushing of air. ]

This place isn't built like that. It wasn't made by design for human hands to put together. This is far more like a dream than a memory. I doubt conventional means of breaking out will have much of an effect, so it's perhaps best to follow whatever rules that this place operates by.
justscribing: (❖ 130)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-14 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Yes he remembers Kaveh precariously clinging to their cart 1/4th of the way up because he wanted to look at the joints.]

Traditional means of breaking out hasn't really worked in any of these strange dimensions, so I wasn't expecting to be able to break the door down. But couldn't this be like a memory of a space that wasn't made by human hands?
fussiest: (pic#16494291)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-14 07:55 am (UTC)(link)
It could be. Or it couldn't be. It's difficult to say. But this is Ghost - she seems familiar with most of the trappings of the world that this city belongs to, with all its amenities. It shouldn't be that different, where she comes from.

[ ... ] Unless... this is technology from her original world.
justscribing: (❖ 63)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-14 08:09 am (UTC)(link)
You mean the one she was raised in? My impression was that she didn't know anything about where she was born. [Which is what Alhaitham would call her "original" world, if not her "home" world.]
fussiest: (pic#16494241)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-14 08:36 am (UTC)(link)
That's what I mean, yes. The place where she was born. Perhaps she doesn't recall, or remember - but there are some things you experience without having remembered, only for it to come back in dreams.

Perhaps that's what this place is. [ kaveh looks, from wall-to-wall. ] Well, I suppose even if we asked her later, she wouldn't be able to say so, one way or another. But it's a thought, isn't it? The body remembers, and the mind tries to replicate it, piece by piece.
justscribing: (❖ 92)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-14 09:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Every child in Sumeru dreams before they receive their first Akasha terminal. Alhaitham had fragmented ones where he could almost grasp his mother's voice humming a lullaby or his father's hands balancing his small body and a book. Things that he doesn't know in his conscious memory.

He cants his head in silent acquiescence.]
She'd probably wonder why we asked at all about a place she clearly can't remember.
fussiest: (pic#16494204)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-14 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ kaveh has to laugh at that. ]

Or she'll write herself a past. One or the other, right?
justscribing: (❖ 56)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-14 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Rather than a past, isn't it better to write a future?
fussiest: (pic#16494258)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-15 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ there's a careful, startled beat. then, kaveh smiles. his eyes curve along the sharp line of its edges. ]

... you know, once in a while, you do have the ability to say something agreeable. Poignant, even. Good work.
justscribing: (❖ 111)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-15 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
I've always believed that. [And because he sees that good mood he is going to lean in for a quick kiss while he can get away with it.]
fussiest: (pic#16494339)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-15 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ to scream or not to scream, because a) this is alhaitham being his most alhaitham, b) they're in public, or at least there are other people here, and c) this is ghost's trauma hallucination you absolutely fuck.

but also looping back to a) this is still alhaitham, and so kaveh allows the briefest brush of their lips, before he kicks alhaitham's ankle.
]

Behave. You've only said one agreeable thing so far. Solve Ghost's puzzle before you go off being all celebratory.
justscribing: (❖ 68)

[personal profile] justscribing 2024-01-15 02:12 am (UTC)(link)
[He is being so chaste about this?? Why complain about the kiss and not his hand all over Kaveh's backside.

Well, pleased anyway:]
I'm sure everyone will do their best that we leave as quickly as possible. Unless you intend to keep standing there.
fussiest: (pic#16494274)

[personal profile] fussiest 2024-01-15 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
[ kaveh kicks alhaitham's ankle again - ]

Then, go. Start walking, and I'll do the same!