[closed]

[badfeyth]

WHO: Ghost (badfeyth), Reno (astraphilia) , Johanna (keepgodwaiting) , Lestat (perfectdevil) , Alhaitham (justscribing) , and Kaveh (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?

Comments

[fussiest]

[ a rhythm, kaveh thinks. he considers this. then, he pulls at the keycard pinned to his lapel. ]

I'll try mine first, then. We've both one of the unique colours. I wonder if that makes a difference. [ kaveh holds out his card, and presses it to the sensor. ]

[badfeyth]

[The door opens! And since neither one of you detailed any specific precautions about positioning yourselves prior to it sliding open —

Both Kaveh and Alhaitham will be able to see into the room, which is almost immediately discernible as some sort of library or reading nook. There are books just about everywhere — on shelves lining the walls, stacked in piles on the floor, covering most available horizontal surfaces. Kaveh, in particular, might find himself experiencing a sense of deja vu about this room.

However, books aren't the only things inside it; quite the contrary, it looks surprisingly lived-in, featuring beanbag chairs that are in good condition but have definitely seen a lot of loving use, cheap plastic toys reminiscent of slinkies and Pez dispensers, a stuffed animal with the fur worn nearly flat where it once was likely quite fluffy. The source of the music is almost definitely the Discman lying between the two beanbags, playing some sort of nondescript pop tune audible through the attached headphones. Scattered everywhere — sticking out of books, attached to the walls, littered on the floor — are post-it notes with writing scribbled on them.

It seems as though someone, or someones, spent quite a bit of time in this room! Surely there's stuff to find — where would you like to look first?]

[fussiest]

[ kaveh looks. sorry i'm throwing aside the usual pretentious narration so i can get this joke in: kaveh groans. he sure is putting his head against the wall. ]

Of course. Of course we would get the most Alhaitham room. [ kaveh looks to the ceiling in abject despair. he gestures at it. ] Ghost, can you hear me? You and this one here [ the one whose ankle kaveh is now kicking, ] - you're too much alike! This is unconscionable! I can barely deal with one Alhaitham, and now I've physical proof that there are two! What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?

[badfeyth]

[Consider: perhaps it is instead that Alhaitham is the most Ghost person in this scenario? She presumably came first, after all.

Anyway, he's probably noticed by now that the distribution of stuff and clutter™ does in fact very much resemble the way it was when he'd visited her apartment, yes.]

[fussiest]

[ ghost is alhaitham senior, or alhaitham is ghost junior. this is it. this is the bad place.

kaveh sighs. without a sign from the heavens, he turns back to the room to look. it does, kaveh thinks, resemble that pattern, doesn't it. ghost likes piling things on top of another. she enjoys having things within easy reach. if there were a kitchen in this room, perhaps kaveh will see a pile of take-out containers piled high. it's rather charming, he thinks, as he takes a step into the room proper.

but where is the dragon?

kaveh looks about, and begins to examine the post-it notes. what do they say? ]

[badfeyth]

[What don't they say, is the real question. Some are puns, others are two-sided with an obvious riddle on one half and the answer on the opposite side. Some have scribbled drawings. It's as though the residents of this room had a habit of communicating with each other through passed notes and memoranda; though the chronology isn't always evident, the back-and-forth is evident after reading enough of them.

Some takeaways he'll discover, though, are as follows:

- There are at least two sets of handwriting involved. One set is unmistakably Ghost's; lord knows Kaveh saw enough of her correspondence during the setup of the gala.
- The handwriting evolves, the way one might expect of a person as they age.
- The jokes and puns are predominantly in Ghost's handwriting.
- The ones not in Ghost's handwriting often have bits scratched out or circled — the way someone might while brainstorming to themselves.
- A number of them, in both handwritings, read Don't write wrongs, right wrongs!

Most of the ones that say that, coincidentally, come from around the bookstack between the two beanbag chairs.]

[fussiest]

[ don't write wrongs, right wrongs.

two sets of handwriting echoed. kaveh thinks - ghost, that is what a hero would say. he sifts through the post-it notes with a renewed sense of unease. these are ghost's innermost thoughts, put on display for the sole sake of a hint for an escape plan. it isn't right, but then again, none of these rooms have been. ravekeeper to a raverobber. kaveh can see in the easy back-and-forth something of himself and alhaitham, that familiar communication, those shared jokes or insults. the way the two sets of handwriting seemed to grow in tandem.

when your roots are so intertwined, kaveh thinks, what happens when you are separated? what is left behind?

kaveh rounds the bookstack. he begins to look through that stack of books. ]

[badfeyth]

[Upon more careful perusal, he'll quickly discover that the bookstack that sits between the beanbag chairs has one very distinct difference from pretty much all the others in this room:

They're all totally blank. And not just blank, but untouched; the spines aren't bent, the covers aren't creased, the pages are still so crisp they're on the verge of sticking together. Fresh, clean, at the ready; the world is your oyster, and these blank journals are your means of writing in it.

Of course, since Kaveh is presumably going through the stack one by one, taking them off the top as he peruses them, there's something else he'll very quickly notice.

No matter how many journals he takes off the top, the stack never gets any shorter.]

[fussiest]

[ they're blank, kaveh thinks. that's unusual. the fact that the sticky-notes seem to be circle the area means this is high-traffic, high-use area where the two of them would've often congregated. but why would there simply be a pile of blank books?

... well, kaveh thinks. they're for writing. well, writing. did the two of them write stories in these?

it's the impetus of someone who works with his hands to pull another pencil from the crow's nest of his hair. kaveh hesitates on the threshold, and then, murmuring a brief apology to ghost, attempts to write a few words on the page: "once upon a time," ]

[justscribing]

Kaveh, look at this.

[Alhaitham is interrupting with two journals, one recognizably in Ghost's handwriting and one in the other.] They're personal study journals. Did Ghost every tell you she was "born" to write?

[fussiest]

[ kaveh looks up from where he'd been picking up an endless stack of books to tip his head alhaitham's way. huh. ]

... in a sense, I suppose. [ he says, slowly, as he skims the writing on the page. ] She'd mentioned that she was made to be different. I thought she was being metaphorical, or was trying to devalue herself again.

[justscribing]

[Was there something touching his ankle. Maybe a bug.]

We're too alike because we like to read? [Amusement, because that is not what Kaveh was getting at. It's liking to read so much to have sprawling personal library.]Did you know she wrote those books that you asked her to lend to me?

[fussiest]

Yes, she's quite the prolific author. That's why I thought you'd be interested in reading what she had to write - that, and there were hardly any books at the time.

[ kaveh looks to alhaitham. this time, he nudges him in the shoulder, a proper nudge. ] She reminds me a little of the you I found in the House of Daena, the one that stood apart from all the other Haravatats. Though the difference between you and her is that she would have wanted to join that group, but would have stopped herself from doing it.

[justscribing]

And you noticed she's lonely. [He tilts his head towards Kaveh's.] And did you initially send her to me because you thought we'd become friends? That seems to be a sore spot for her.

[fussiest]

Send her to you to be friends? Please, Alhaitham, you've accused me of being an idealist, but the definition of that word doesn't include delusion. Sending anyone to you to make friends is like sending someone to sea expecting that they come back on the head of a whale.

She had books, and you wanted to read them. I wasn't going to run you errands all day, and in any case, she ought to be able to see what sort of man will be reading her books so that she knows you'll be giving them back. I thought it would help with a long-term exchange. [ kaveh frowns. ] Wait, a sore spot? What did you say to her?

[justscribing]

Nothing. [Extremely debatable.] She just mentioned thinking we could be friends.

[To Alhaitham.] Though perhaps it's more accurate to say that you're argument with her about her personal worth hit a sore spot and it simply bled out into her conversation with me.

[fussiest]

Hey, now. I can see you casually deflecting the blame onto me - and I admit that that entire conversation went down like a lead balloon, but that doesn't mean you didn't say something that made it worse. It's you, after all.

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham does give the room a cursory look from the entrance but since nothing jumped out when the door opened he's going to walk right in. He circles first to the shelves and browses the book titles for anything familiar or incongruent with the other books.]

[badfeyth]

[Here's one thing he'll immediately notice: they're all nonfiction. In the entirety of this repository of books, there is not one single novel, collection of short stories, anything.

What topics do the nonfiction books cover? Yes. You name it, it's probably in here somewhere. It's just a veritable reference library of...well, everything.

He'll also notice that some of the books are a little different than the others; here and there, scattered among the reference books, are shoved thinner and softer-bound journals. These ones tend to have quite a few post-it notes sticking out of them.]

[justscribing]

[Ghost you have excellent taste in books. Alhaitham has to remind himself that there are other people here and one of them is Kaveh so he cannot, in fact, just sit down with a stack of them for a few hours.

Even if he really, really wants to.

No, he focuses on the journals, opening them to skim their contents and the post-it notes.]

[badfeyth]

[Like with the scattered post-it notes, these journals are the clear byproduct of two different people; having borrowed Ghost's textbooks and been around her whirlwind during the gala setup, he can determine fairly easily that one set of handwriting is hers, while the other is not.

Both sets of journals demonstrate organic growth in terms of finesse; some are written very simply in clunkier handwriting, while others are more precise, while others are the sort of cramped messy of someone who's mastered their own personal handwriting style and can jot it off at the speed of thought, without having to be deliberate about it. The sentence structure, likewise, reflects a similar evolution.

The journals not in Ghost's handwriting are very clearly the work of a creative and intuitive innovator; there are full pages of notes that look like synthesized research drawn from countless different sources (and indeed, the sources are neatly cited), there are flowcharts, there are brainstorming webs, there are sketches. Most all of them make reference to "the talent" in some way or another, and there are several instances of notes on hypothetical applications, usually either with check marks in the margins or items crossed out.

The journals that are in Ghost's handwriting are both less brilliant but also less...manic? This style of writing is both more internalized and more reflective, the way one might expect a personal diary to be. There are simplistic fable-like stories, there are personal accounts of the activities of a given day (usually referencing "tutoring"); some are upbeat and enthusiastic, while others are solemn and melancholy. The one common denominator among all of them, however, is that the author's ability to convey images, ideas, and sentiments is very deft; they have a distinct and predictable style, a good command of language, and a knack for making themselves understood without double meaning or obscurity.

The post-it notes are pretty much like all the others — tabs to draw attention to particular pages, silly little drawings, and the like.]

[justscribing]

[How interesting. Alhaitham is going to take with him one of Ghost's journals and one of the other person's journals.

And then, just to be sure, he's going to kick over the beanbags and see if anything is under them. This is unlikely, but he's inclined to be thorough.]

[badfeyth]

[He is now in possession of two journals! Inventory get.

Kicking over the beanbags tragically does not do anything except send clearly-loved possessions and post-it notes scattering haphazardly around the room as the big weighty masses of bean-filled fabric displace them. The pristine stack of blank journals that Kaveh found goes spilling all over the floor. It replaces itself instantly in the exact same height and number immediately thereafter.

Is there any other property damage you want to cause, Godzilla?]

[fussiest]

Hey! [ kaveh says from where he'd been examining some of the post-its, head whipping up at a clip: ] This isn't a pile of rocks in the middle of the desert you're circling, this is Ghost's room. Be gentle, you brute! Surely you know the meaning of the word, what good otherwise are the twenty languages they beat into the solid rock of your head?

[justscribing]

[There will, unfortunately, be no further property damage because the wife is mad. He is raising his eyebrow at how the stack automatically resets itself.]

And what about you? Are you going to put all of those journals back where you found them?