+ Somewhere a Grandiose Carnival Was Going on in the Sky +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: Everyone!
Where: The grounds of the Mansion
When: March 9-16
Rating: PG-13 (warn if you go higher)
Summary: The Red Queen has thrown a carnival for everyone!
The Story:


From Friday, March 9, through Friday, March 16, the gardens and grounds of the Mansion will be a sprawling a carnival. The masked, unspeaking vendors will be selling trinkets and running free game booths. Carnival rides, exhibits, and foods represent all of the various cultures of those currently residing in the Mansion.


Of particular note, and perhaps incongruously, everything is decorated with red hearts.

Use this log for any and all of your carnival needs!

Comments

[choosetruth]

She frowns, shifting to look out at the rest of the carnival.

"The Red Queen suggested there's a way. She also suggested we're incapable of it. Or at least that I am."

Not that Georgia intends to quit. She just has to be damn careful about it.

[postictal]

“What about the other residents? Like Alice?” She’s pretty comfortable relating to the rest of them, which is a positive in his mind. Most people he’s spoken to who are familiar with her are protective - or at the very least, would care if something else were to happen to her.

“Maybe it’s a question of what we are, or the fact that we still remember where we came from. We’re not Wonderland’s so we can’t do much to it, maybe. If that’s the case, why not back someone who can?”

[choosetruth]

"Yes, a 12 year old with barely any memories and 150 plus years of being trapped in this hellhole. That couldn't possibly go wrong."

She's just saying, Alice is nice enough, but she's flaky. She might be nice to the Mirrors and the Reals, but being nice isn't the most important thing for a queen.

"I'd be all for that, but it would have to be the right person. We don't want to make things worse than they already are."

[postictal]

"I'm just saying our options are limited here. You wanna go with the Dormouse instead?" Honestly, Alice is probably the one of them he trusts the most, which isn't much but is, admittedly, something. He doesn't distrust her as much as he does the rest.

That may as well be a vote of confidence in his book.

"I guess it comes down to whether you'd rather do nothing, or do something that has the risk to make things worse." He suspects he knows which one she'd pick.

[choosetruth]

"The Dormouse is one of the more competent residents if you wake him up." It's just that waking him up is the trick. She straightens, frowning at him. "And the answer is neither. I'd rather come up with a plan that might make things better."

[postictal]

"The problem with biding your time here is that you're always doing it. Hell, I've been doing it." Holding off on using that chess piece until the opportune moment, because...fuck, what if he ends up really needing it? What if there's something worse down the line? What if this chance is better off not being taken?

Is there a choice there, a question of gauging the best time to actually act? Or is there just never a good time, period?

Personally, he leans toward the latter.

[choosetruth]

"What else do we have here but time?"

An unknown amount, perhaps, but it's just about the only thing they have in excess.

"There's middle ground between never acting and being impulsive. It's called being strategic."

[postictal]

"So what's the strategy right now? Bide your time, try and convince the Mirrors that they're being misled...however likely that'll be?" 'Cause he's been having some limited success in some regards, and...more success in others.

But then again, he's not sure if his successes really count. He didn't sway the Mirrors in question so much as provide them an alternate route to the same destination they were always planning on heading.

[choosetruth]

"And do research."

Research isn't just biding time. Research is how you learn. Research is how you come up with your strategies.

[postictal]

"Which kinda depends on how chatty the residents're feeling." Or how much she feels like trawling through a spotty network history. He's tried a few times, and quickly given up. It's not like searching "Marble Hornets" on google, because so much of it is patchworked and missing at this point.

Guess even magical networks have expiration dates.

[choosetruth]

"Or how deep you're willing to dig." She adjusts her sunglasses. "More has been written down than any one person can remember. But written down doesn't mean digitalized and stored securely in a cross-referenced, organized, and most importantly searchable database. I'm working on fixing that."

It won't be easy, but what in her life ever has been? It's still worth doing.

[postictal]

"Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure everyone would be relieved if you could manage a thing like that." Jay, for one, would probably cut down on the time he spends peering at monitors, the blue glare highlighting the bruise-purple rings underneath his eyes, at least until he replaced it with something else to spend his time in the early hours of the morning, when he should be sleeping but can't really manage it.

"You ask Shepard about help with that? I think she's gone trawling through old archives a couple times more than once."

[choosetruth]

"Yeah. Her work's much more thorough than mine." Georgia's all about news. History might inform the news, but it'll never be where she likes focusing. She's much better at chronicling the present than digging into the past unless she has a specific project in mind.

Also, Shepard's better at computers than she is.

[postictal]

"So join forces. I know Jay, at least, would thank you for it." And Tim would thank you both too, because it would mean Jay would be spending less time hunting down old things that earlier iterations of them said, or earlier iterations of their Mirrors said and did.

Though Tim, for his part, could happily do without knowing either.

[choosetruth]

"Way ahead of you here. We've been comparing notes for a while." She gives a very slim smile. "I don't let reliable sources go to waste."

[postictal]

"And you're not employing her? I'm shocked." But he kinda wishes he had a camera, just to snap this as it happens: Georgia Mason, smiling in a very ready and willing sense.

"But on the plus side, you've hit your quota of smiles per month, so you can jot that down."

[choosetruth]

She will never hit her quote of middle fingers per month, so Tim can have one of those now.

[postictal]

“Cute,” says Tim, dryly. “That was a compliment.” Even if he had to drape it in his characteristic wry commentary to make it tolerable to both himself and, probably, to her. Open sincerity would probably spoil the mood.