entrancelogs | I'm Dreaming of a White Ewaymas

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I'm Dreaming of a White Ewaymas | OPEN

Who: EVERYONE
Where: Your dreams!
When: December 15th - December 25th, whenever a character is asleep.
Rating: PG-13 (Warn if Higher)
Summary: A catch-all for everyone's mysterious alternate Wonderland dreams!
The Story:

At first, it will seem like the decorations are the only change for the season. The days will proceed as usual. No other holiday magic to be seen. But when night falls and everyone is nestled, all snug in their beds, they will not have their usual dreams. Instead they will "wake up" in an alternate version of Wonderland - one where those white decorations are displayed on top of white walls, white furniture, white everything in the common areas of the mansion. Even when the holidays are over, this mansion would go back to a mostly white color palette. There are others in this pale place, your friends and loved ones, but something is not right. They are all nice enough and everyone seems content, but it will become apparent the more you speak to them - they do not remember anything outside of Wonderland. None of them do.

This alternate dream Wonderland is free for you to explore, and will be mostly the same as the one in the waking world, aside from the excessively white decorations. ALl of your belongings are there, all of your familiar locations are there, but there is just one room that is different. Deep in the basement, there is a room with the white Queen's symbol on the door. When asked about it, the people of the dream will say that it is always locked, and many of them are content to let their Queen have her privacy, after all that she has given them. Some might be more concerned, but either way the door is always locked.

Except when the person having the dream tries the door. It will open for them. And inside that mysterious (and evidently very large) room is row after row after row of jars, all faintly glowing in different colors.

Upon inspection, each jar is labeled with the name of someone in Wonderland and a series of numbers and letters. They are labelled by number and not name, but each person has hundreds of jars in this room. The dreamer might even see their own name mixed in among the thousands. They might want to take a jar, and if they do an alarm will go off to alert Her Majesty that she has been robbed. They will only be able to reason take one jar - the first one they pick up. The door will slam shut behind them and every time they try the door after that, it will be locked. No magic or lock-picking will open it.

If they take a jar with someone else's name on it and give it to that person, and that person opens it, that colorful glow will rise up and sink into them and they will regain one random memory from home. If they open a jar with their own name, they will remember a memory so vividly it is as though they're reliving it (since they already have all their memories) and if they open a jar with someone else's name it will drift off to go find its owner, and restore that memory to them.

EACH THREAD IS ONE PERSON'S DREAM-CATCHALL FOR THE WHOLE EVENT and the content will differ slightly from dreamer to dreamer based on what they do in their dreams (so just because someone has a memory restored in Character A's dream does NOT mean it is restored in EVERYONE'S dreams). Prose or [Action brackets] are fine and if you have any other questions or need to plot more with this new information, head over to the plot post!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Souji likes the white outside and he likes the way the snow makes everything look fuzzy and sugary. Chara's a blotch on the snow that's easy to spot and Souji waves at them from a distance.

"Chara!" His voice is bright as he makes his way toward them, taking some care not to make too much a mess of the snow.

They immediately straighten up, tuck the hand they've been pressing into the snow behind their back. Like a wet, cold hand is somehow some kind of atrocious slight against common decency. Like they're going to get in trouble for ruining a perfect snowbank with their grubby hand. Like they've broken a rule, even if they haven't done anything more than crouch in the snow and do nothing.

...Chara realizes, a moment later, how absurd that reaction is. They force themself to look more relaxed. Why do they care what Souji thinks, anyway? Who cares what anyone thinks.

"Howdy," they call back, fixing a cherubic smile onto their face. "Here to admire the scenery?" Ah, yes. Picturesque white on white, with a hint of white. Nature in all its brilliance.

"Yeah." Souji smiles at them. "I like it in the winter. There are a lot of things you can do that you can't the rest of the year."

Plus, he likes the color white. He looks at them expectantly as he comes to stand nearby.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I sort of just do things arbitrarily," they joke. "I am not known for my rationality or impulse control."

Not a lie, technically. They wipe their snowy, damp hand off on their sweater, consider kicking the snowbank where their handprint is preserved. Just to wreck it. Just to erase the trace of their existence they left behind.

"But I suppose if I needed to establish a reason... I must be trying to make sense of it. It was already snowy when I was first summoned to Wonderland. This is my first time seeing the altogether sudden transition from absolutely nothing to fluffy, picturesque snowbanks."

"It's pretty sudden, isn't it?" Souji nods like this is important. "Wonderland's never been good at seasons, but it tries."

"Better than nothing, I suppose," Chara hums. "If we wanted to see snow back home, we'd have to trek all the way to Snowdin. It was much more sparsely populated than the Snowdin Frisk remembers, too. Wasn't much of anything out there."

"Back home?" Souji peers at them. "This is home. Where else would we have been?"

They stare flatly. "I know you've been here for a while, Souji, but it's not home home. I'm referring to the Underground. The world that I occupied before I was summoned here."

"Do you mean the caves?"

Those are underground, but he's pretty sure Chara lives with Frisk and not down there. Besides, that's not a different world and the topic of different worlds itself, while Souji can grasp it, seems quite foreign.

He shrugs the whole thing off, smiling more openly than Chara has probably ever seen.

"Do you want to play in the snow with me?"

They're really starting to feel bewildered now. Has Souji forgotten utterly that they came from the Underground? What's got him so... unusually expressive, all of a sudden?

He... wants to... he wants to play with them?

It feels... they maybe don't know Souji that well, but it feels unusual. He seems very Frisklike. Sympathetic, selfless, helpful... but in a distancing sort of way. A way that keeps people at arm's length from him. Serious, reserved, still. Somehow, imagining him frolicking in the snow is... it's new, huh?

About as new as expecting he'd see them as the playing type. They're just as unreadable and reserved. Not interested in toys, because toys don't interest their partner at all. Not truly a kid, not a real human child. Only pretending to be one. So, therefore, not a creature who is permitted to do childish things like play. Too grown up for it. Old souls like you, Chara, are just adults in a child's skin.

"Is this... a prank?" They blurt, disbelieving. "You're tricking me, aren't you? You'll... you're going to lure me into the snow, then laugh at me for behaving like a kid, aren't you?" It feels paranoid and stretched-thin even to them, but they - they genuinely don't understand this!

"Why would I do that?" Souji's expression is one that mirrors their disbelief. "It would be fun, wouldn't it?"

Why in the world would he trick someone into having fun? It seems backwards, and, if he did, in the end, the other person would still win out in that situation.

"Besides, we are kids, aren't we?"

Calling himself a kid might be stretching it a bit, but anyone who suggests "playing in the snow" with them has to be at least somewhat childlike.

...Him? A kid? But he's not even wearing a striped shirt.

They honestly never thought of him as a child. How old is he? However old he looks, they've got to add five or four onto it, because that's how long he's been here, and he looks old enough to babysit them, so... are they just being childish by not fully understanding his age? Is this - are they doing some stupid baby thing where anyone over 20 is automatically "old?"

They don't know why, but they go a little redder, like they've been caught acting... not-adult-ish. Like a kid.

"Are we?"

They sure don't feel like anyone actually believes they're a child. They never know what to make of it when people - when they do this. Actually treat them like they're just a kid, not an inhuman threat, not a mistake, not a cunning and omniscient force. Awkwardly, hesitantly, they reach down. Scoop up a handful of snow. Sort of... just look at it, like they're not entirely sure what to do with it. Like they've forgotten how to even play.

...They look up at Souji. Wait for some kind of guidance from him. Some idea of... what they're supposed to be doing?

"Like this."

Souji gathers up some snow in both hands, packing it together into a ball, which he throws into the snow. If they were standing further apart, he might have thrown it at Chara instead, but that seems a little mean to do to someone who doesn't seem to know about snowballs, and who's standing within a few feet of him.

"Normally, you run around and throw them at each other. That's a snowball fight."

Except there are usually other people.

"You can also build things out of snow."

They just keep going redder and redder, because it's - they're not stupid, right? They're smart enough to know... they think they'd be embarrassed either way, honestly. Wish they didn't have to be so rosy. Wish they had fur, or something that could hide how easily they blush.

"In Snowdin, there's a game you play with snowballs," they blurt, just to prove they're smart, prove they know things. "It's just called ball game. You have to roll a snowball into a hole." But there aren't any holes around here, huh? No colored flags to raise, no fanfares to play, no subtle hints to whisper about the kids who fell before the eighth did. "There are snowmen, too. We could build one, maybe?" They offer falteringly, looking away, as if they don't even like playing or making things, as if they've never once had fun in their life, because fun is for -

for people who have friends, for people who are allowed to be children

- for babies. Pfft.

Souji still has no idea what this "Snowdin" thing is about, but he shrugs that off as part of Chara's attempt not to seem ignorant about playing in the snow. He has no problem with that - it's something he can help with!

"Yeah! That's fun, too." He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. "We can make a pretty big one."

Being tall is useful in many, many contexts.

"Let's get started! I'll roll the bottom section and you can do the middle."

They nod, kneel down in the snow, start building up a snowball. Puzzles might be fun if you tried them, someone once suggested, and they remember the pins-and-needles wariness they felt in response. Like that innocent suggestion was an accusation, somehow. A trap, or something. I know you enjoy things, Chara. How dare you. You think you have that right?

...Pretty ridiculous, huh?

But snowmen might be fun if they tried those, too. Ha ha.

"Just as long as you don't mind me kicking the stupid thing over when we're done," they announce, putting on a smile. See? They're not really into this. They're only interested in destroying things. It's no use trying to do anything with Chara, because it won't be rewarding. They'll wreck it!

But this... it might be fun.

"I mean, we don't even have any buttons for the eyes or a hat or anything."

"You can make it with your fingers." Souji leans over and scoops out a smiley face in the snow with his middle and index fingers. "Like that."

As for a hat, he's wearing one, but he thinks he needs it more than the snowman will, so he doesn't volunteer it.

"If you kick it over, what's the point of having made it?" He crouches down not far from them in order to start gathering up snow as well. He'll have to roll it around once he has a good start. Make it round, pick up more snow, pack it all in together.

"I don't know, some kind of zen thing?" They shrug. "The experience of making a snowman is what counts, not leaving behind a lasting landmark. We are all Ozymandias, or something." They may or may not only have the vaguest, fuzziest concept of who or what Ozymandias even is, but it's an impressive and intellectual-sounding allusion to make. That's what counts.

"Haven't you ever kicked something over just for the fun of it?"

That's probably not a very heroic thing to do, admittedly. More suited to petty problem children. But it's satisfying. Wreck your sandcastle. Gather up a huge pile of leaves just so you can jump into it and scatter it everywhere. Stack blocks as high as you can, just to topple the whole precarious tower. "Destruction might be satisfying too, if you tried it."

Souji gets the reference and smiles at it. It's a good point, even if Chara was only vaguely aware that it was.

"I've never done that. Destroyed something just because."

Having packed a good amount of snow together, he gets to his feet to start rolling it around the ground to pick up more snow and get bigger.

"Can I try it, too, after we're done?" Maybe it would be satisfying.

"Of course you can. Don't need my permission to play however you want to play, do you? It's a free country." ...They don't even know if they can define Wonderland as a country. A free... mansion and modest amount of surrounding wilderness? A free... storybook? Whatever. He probably gets what they mean. They're not gonna turn him in for doing something against the rules. If there even are any rules about the proper way to frolick in the snow.

There probably aren't. This isn't actually misbehaving. But it's all about the illusion of misbehaving. That catharsis that comes with wrecking something picturesque and nice and worked-on. That feeling of doing something wild and noisy and against the rules, even if it isn't actually against the rules. Sometimes, being a bad kid feels better than anything good ever could.

They just grin ear-to-ear, roll their modestly-growing little snowball along. "I bet you'll like it. Being messy is fun, even if good kids aren't supposed to be. Being strong is fun, even if it makes you scary. Nobody's really getting hurt, since I don't think Wonderland snowmen are alive, so what's the harm in it, right?"

"If you get used to harming inanimate objects, it would be that much easier to harm animate ones," he reasons. Not that that's going to keep him from knocking over this snowman when they're done with it. It's just that...

"I think it's something I wouldn't want to get used to."

* (You lightly tap the dummy.)
* (You feel bad.)

Chara rolls their eyes and pretends they didn't hear that. It's so overwhelmingly goody two-shoes. So very protagonist of him.

"Fine, then don't. I'm still the villain of my story, though, so I'm still going to commit deplorable and scummy acts like terrorizing lumps of snow."

"No, I'm still going to try it."

Souji is nothing if not curious and he will be kicking this snowman's ass once it's finished just to see what it's like.

He pauses in what he's doing, straightening up to look at Chara.

"The villain?" He certainly sounds skeptical.

Of course he is. Just gonna remind them that the things they like are cruel and bad, but then go ahead and do them anyway, huh?

"The villain. We've had this conversation before, buddy. I've never pretending I was a good person, so don't go looking so surprised now," they cheerfully inform him, pausing in their snowball-rolling for a moment to survey their work so far.

"What do you think? Big enough?"

Souji gives them a bewildered look, but is distracted for a moment by their snowball. He nods.

"Mine still needs to get bigger, so you can make another one for the head, if you want."

He goes back to working on his snowball, but can't shake what's bugging him.

"You've never told me that before, you know. The villain thing."

I'm Dreaming of a White Ewaymas | OPEN

12/17 outside

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