+ Ahh~! Like a good old fashion nightmare! | [OPEN] +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE
Where: Your dreams!
When: Friday February 17th - Monday February 20th (The length of the event!)
Rating: PG-13, warn if higher!
Summary: A catch-all log for everyone's dreams in this event, and all of the subconscious shenanigans within them!
The Story:

Over the course of the event, characters will find themselves falling asleep at random moments of the day, spacing out only to find themselves in a dream moments later. Whenever this happens, characters will find themselves in visions or nightmares. The content is entirely up to you, but must be something that would have some significance to the character, whether literally or metaphorically. They will likely be about a character's true feelings about a matter, or their hidden fears.

Either way, these dreams are trying to tell you something - something that you've buried, willfully ignored, or flat out just haven't realized about yourself. Within their dreams, they will meet people (from Wonderland) who represent their subconscious. These people will have uncanny knowledge of the dreamer's most inner thoughts: fears, desires, guilt, regrets, even their private thoughts of what they imagine their future to be like - and they will absolutely want to shove it in the dreamer's face, as though these repressed thoughts and feelings are rising to the surface.

OOCly, people will be able to play either awake in Wonderland or as versions of their characters within someone else's dream, taunting them with their subconscious thoughts and feelings. They will mostly be themselves, aside from the knowledge of what's going on in the dreamer's head. It's possible the dreamer might not even realize it's a dream at first, but it's equally possible that a character within someone's dream can be twisted or altered in some way if it helps them better deliver their message. They can even do standard nightmare things, like completely breaking the laws of physics or appearing and disappearing as needed.

Characters will feel sufficiently rested from these dreams, even if they don't like the content - which is good, because caffeine and all other stimulants one would use to keep themselves awake will be rendered completely ineffective.

Feel free to make use of this post for dream shenanigans! All top-levels are assumed to be for the person dreaming and the replies will all be within their dream, threads with characters who represent their subconscious. Prose and [brackets] are both welcome and if you have any questions you can over to the plot post! ♥

Comments

(a)nother prison

[postictal]

This time, there's a man sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, watching her. He doesn't look like a scientist, or any sort of person in charge. He's more of an idle observer, really, arms folded behind his head - far more lax than he's ever been in the waking world.

"Really had this place tricked out for you, huh?" Tim comments, idly. "Pretty nice place to spend your days."

[uncaging]

Her focus is on the files and equipment, and Elizabeth doesn't notice Tim sat in the corner until he speaks. At first she looks relieved to see someone familiar, but it soon becomes apparent that he's not there to help her. His words sting.

"It's not nice. It's a cage."

[postictal]

"Sure," he says, agreeable, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment. It's a very pretty cage, but a cage nonetheless.

"And how's this different from how things are now, again?" How's this cage any different from the one she's stuck in now? Oh, sure, there's no cameras or anything, but there's mirrors and all sorts of people watching you in your most private and personal moments. Can't exactly call it different, can she?

[uncaging]

Elizabeth flushes a little at the question, and she knows deep down it's not really different at all. She's just been moved from one cage to another, after a small taste of freedom, and what's worse is that after the failure of the portal experiment she'd become more or less accepting of her prison.

"It's not the same at all," she manages, stuttering a little. "Besides, I'm not alone there."

[postictal]

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised." His tone is little beyond a lazy drawl, considerably less fraught with concern and hunched-shoulder anxiety that the Tim she knows would. "Adjusted to all of it real quick. Almost like you're not even trying to find a way out."

The words don't need to be scathing, but then - they don't have to be.

"Guess it really is just like home after all."

[uncaging]

"This is not my home." She waves a hand around the room to make her point, beginning to feel angry now. "And I have too tried to find a way out -- you weren't there for the portal." Just how wrong things had gone there had made her far more cautious about trying to find a way out, but she certainly didn't think she'd given up ... although the more Tim talks the more doubt begins to creep in. Was she really trying? Or was a life in a cage with friends better than the uncertainty that awaited her if she were to return to Columbia. "Besides, I haven't seen you trying to escape - you can't lecture me on it."

[postictal]

"And after that little failure, you just...what? Gave up?" The real Tim wouldn't be so hasty to thrust those sorts of words at her, being a prime example of what it is to give up before one has even really tried. But a detached, anthropomorphized fragment of her consciousness?

There's no line he won't cross.

[uncaging]

"Of course not!" she snaps defensively, though she knows there's no other way to justify how quickly she'd stopped trying. "It's just that between the events, and how difficult it is to leave..."

[postictal]

"Sounds like giving up to me." He lifts his eyebrows skeptically. "Sounds like excuses. You sure some part of you doesn't like being stuck here? Maybe it's just easier that way."

[uncaging]

"It-- I--" Elizabeth sputters, but the excuses die on her tongue, knowing that there's more than a grain of truth in what Tim's saying. Wonderland was a prison, true, but she wasn't alone there. That in itself at least part of her want to stay.

[postictal]

Yeah. That's what he thought.

"I guess as far as prisons go, it's not a bad place to be stuck in," he adds drolly, rapping knuckles against the varnished wood of a bookshelf. "You get food, you get care - what're you complaining about, really?"

[uncaging]

"You think this is nice?" She's a little surprised to find she's shouting, but she does nothing to moderate her tone. "Stuck here on your own, being watched like some sort of lab rat? Swaddled from the outside world by your own parents, while they turn you into some sort of messiah? I'd like to see you do any better."

[postictal]

"Difference is, I don't really care." Neither the real Tim nor the superimposition of him currently addressing her in her own dreamscape, as a matter of fact. When you get used to a life without control, nothing really shocks you anymore. Incredible, right?

"Now you. You say you do, but you just...what? Stop trying after a while? Did it all get to be too hard, or what?"

[uncaging]

Elizabeth finds herself unable to look at him, her gaze directed squarely at the floor.

"After a while, you ... you lose hope. That's all."

[postictal]

It's good she can't bring herself to look at him. Preferable, even. She'll find no sympathy in his look; she'll find nothing in his gaze but carefully cultivated disdain.

"Nice excuse. Is that what you keep telling yourself?"

[uncaging]

"Instead of what?" she snaps, her hands balling into fists at her sides. "What do you want me to say?"

[postictal]

"Just admit it: some part of you likes being here." He stabs at her with a finger, a single, pointing indictment, his expression hard.

"Some part of you prefers this."

[uncaging]

Elizabeth wants to protest, but from the way her cheeks burn at his accusation she knows it's true. She's disgusted at herself at preferring this cage to the freedom she'd longed for, but here things were calm and ordered and clean, and she could spend her time reading about the horrors of the world instead of being thrust into them first-hand.

"So what? That doesn't mean I would choose it, ever!"

[postictal]

"You already have."

He answers promptly, easily, and it's clear from the cut edge to her words, the flaring to her cheeks, that she agrees despite her vehement denial.

Can't run from what's inside of you, after all.

You never can.