+ The Time Has Come, the Time Is Now +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: Everyone in Wonderland!
Where: The chessboard hills
When: Monday, June 11, all day starting at 10:00 AM
Rating: R for (sometimes excessive) violence
Summary: The Queen of Hearts has declared war and the time for battle has come.
The Story:
♥ ICly, the Real Things who will act as pieces volunteered and are led by the Red Queen. The Mirrors were chosen by the Queen of Hearts without being given a choice. The Queen of Hearts announced her choices to her Mirrors very directly, with an order to show up at 10:00 AM on the chessboard, ready to fight. The Red Queen announced her choices more politely, but just as firmly, with a text message sent out over the network listing her pieces and requesting their assistance to protect their fellow Real Things. Characters were not ICly able to respond to this message.

♥ Those pieces who choose to obey the summons will have time to gather any items or weapons they might want to have with them, within reason. Those who don't heed the summons will find themselves suddenly and instantly transported to their square on the chessboard when 10:00 AM rolls around. They will arrive with anything that was on their person at the time, as well as one weapon (whatever it would be normal for them to use). Likewise, any spectators who are not in or around the stands by 10:00 AM will find themselves transported there.

♥ Each player sports an armband, white for the Real Things and Black for the Mirrors, with the shape of their assigned chess piece embroidered in the opposite color. Royalty pieces wear crowns indicative of their status. Should a pawn be promoted to queen, a crown will appear on their head.

♥ Pieces will find that they can't leave their assigned spots until they're told what square to move to by either the Queen of Hearts or the Red Queen. And if they refuse to move, after a couple of moments, an unseen force will scoot them along to their new space.

♥ When threading moves on the board, please find the appropriate top-level under which to comment! It might be helpful to label your thread with which move/encounter you're playing out.

♥ Players on the board can not communicate with those in the stands and vice versa (other than by jumping around and flailing, I guess). However, players on the board can communicate directly with those in squares adjacent to them or with any challenger whose square they share. Since some pieces have a lot of down time, feel free to have them chat with others on the board while they're waiting around.

♥ Directions from the Queens can be assumed. Go ahead and play out moves without waiting for a comment to officially announce them.

♥ The plotting and info post for this log is here.

♥ For your convenience, here are links to the thread headers:

The Donation Box
Pre-Game
The Game - Moves 1-20
The Game - Moves 21-40
The Game - Moves 41-60
The Game - Moves 61-80
The Game - Moves 81-100
The Game - Moves 101-117
The Holding Area
The Stands

Have fun!

Comments

[beautifullies]

That's what happens sometimes. I've been hurt before and I'm sure to be hurt again. But I will never sit by and watch or hide when someone needs help. It isn't in me.

[ The lengths she's gone to, in order to protect someone are varied but always because she could never bear to see another person suffer. The man he tried to assault her in Edinburgh, the man she killed, she still tried to save before he died. ]

[panatipata]

[Minato thought about that and thought that he'd rather not get hurt if he could help it. But he could understand why someone would risk it.]

How do you get to be like that? If you're hurt, you would think you wouldn't want it to hurt again because the next time, it could be too much to take.

[beautifullies]

Once you've seen pain and suffering or been a victim of it yourself, your world outlook tends to change.

[ Or at least it had for her. ]

My parents were in an automobile accident when I was nine years old. Had someone been there to help them, they might have lived. Instead, I became an orphan.

[panatipata]

[The Mirror blinked at that last part. He had memories of something like that. Not himself. He knew where they came from.]

Wasn't it hard to be on your own? Weren't you sad when they were gone?

[beautifullies]

I was very sad. I was taken in, by my Uncle, so I wasn't completely alone, but he wasn't exactly...parental, either. I missed out on quite a solid piece of childhood. But he did take me places, all around the world as an archaeologist. And I saw people suffering either in poverty or because they were so remote. That, combined with losing my parents made me realize I could never stand by if someone needed assistance. It isn't who I am.

[panatipata]

That sounds...

[How should he describe it? It sounded liked something he wanted to be, but didn't think he could, though he wasn't sure either if it were for lack of trying. Maybe. He'd have to think about it.]

... really selfless and noble. Life isn't fair though, but it's like you don't care if it is or not.

[beautifullies]

I'm not trying to be selfless and noble. I'm doing the right thing. It doesn't matter who you are or who the other person is. There's a moral obligation to do the right thing.

[ It isn't about life being fair or not, either. She watched her husband be viciously tortured. She miscarried in her eighth month, she was torn away from the husband she wanted for twenty years, she's been assaulted, she's lost, she's grieved. But she's never given up her humanity. If she ever lost that, then she'd be no better than Black Jack Randall. ]

[panatipata]

[Minato nodded, thinking that over. It still sounded selfless to him.]

But how do you determine what's right and wrong? You can help people, and that seems like it's right. But sometimes things can get ambiguous. Your moral compass might not be the same as someone else's.

[beautifullies]

Is a person going to die if I turn a blind eye on them? Yes or no. There's nothing ambiguous about that.

[panatipata]

If that person killed a thousand people, would you still save them?

[beautifullies]

My duty isn't to let someone die no matter the person.

[ She decides to get very candid, not sure that she would have said this otherwise. ]

Before I arrived here, a man tried to...assault me. I pushed him away and he fell, cracked open his skull. I tried to save his life. It wasn't about what he did to me, it's about what I swore to do as a healer.

[panatipata]

[Minato thought that over too, thinking about what he would've done if he were in her shoes or similar. He frowned slightly since he was hearing a lot about her and she had gone through so much. Too much.]

It's something that I'll have to learn for myself.

[Like sticking to one's guns the whole time. Moral obligation, like she mentioned.]

I haven't had a lot of experience with it, being faced with something like that, so I might act like you would or run. But it's something I have to remember and think about, so that helps.

[beautifullies]

Plenty of people run. It doesn't make them bad people.

[ Hell, she's told people to run. It's only the ones who maliciously hurt or don't care at all that she has a problem with. ]

[panatipata]

[Minato nodded, thinking that over.]

When we talk about good or bad and about being good or bad people, how can I tell if I'm a good person? It's the same as me doing good things?

[beautifullies]

Terrible people are capable of doing good things and vice versa.

[ This one's having quite the existential crisis, isn't he? ]

I can't tell you whether or not you're a good person. My experience with you here and now has been fine, but it won't be enough time to make any sort of judgment. I have spent time with your real counterpart and can say that without having seen him make any grand sort of sacrifices, he is a good person. He's concerned with how others are, with being sure people are all right. As long as I've known him, he's never maliciously hurt someone. Perhaps you can use the same metrics.

[panatipata]

[All of the existential crises ever. The part that he worried about was what she said before about terrible people. That made life so much more complicated. He was grateful to hear about his Real though since he had no objections to him. They were just different people that just happened to look the same.]

I will since that's as good of a starting point as anything else. Thanks. Can I use you too for this metric?

If terrible people do good things and good people do terrible things, then I feel like I'll never learn to trust anyone unless I take a leap of faith. But I might have already for you.

[Minato did listen to her and it was nice to listen to someone who could explain things to him without dismissing him if he had a question.]

[beautifullies]

[ Claire stops everything she's doing to look at him fully. ]

There are certainly times you won't know, but usually, in my experience, if I've gotten a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, I trust it. It's never been wrong. And besides that, you shouldn't throw all your trust at someone right away. Build it, give it time. It happens naturally. When I first met my husband we didn't trust each other probably as far as we could have thrown one another. But the trust came and grew.

[ And from there, love, but that's a different existential crisis. ]

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<small>[ Claire stops everything she's doing to look at him fully. ]</small>

There are certainly times you won't know, but usually, in my experience, if I've gotten a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, I trust it. It's never been wrong. And besides that, you shouldn't throw all your trust at someone right away. Build it, give it time. It happens naturally. When I first met my husband we didn't trust each other probably as far as we could have thrown one another. But the trust came and grew.

<small>[ And from there, love, but that's a different existential crisis. ]<s/amll>

Trust is earned by actions.

[panatipata]

[Actions. Stuff people did. Minato had to think back and see if he had done anything to make anyone trust him, which might've been why he had trouble seeing if he should trust anyone else.]

So something like... I have to trust myself too. And do things in moderation or don't force things.

[Minato swallowed hard. He furrowed his eyebrows.]

I like living. But sometimes living is really hard.

[And sometimes very unhappy too.]

wow, sorry about that html fail

[beautifullies]

It wasn't meant to be easy. If you never knew heartache or grief or experienced sadness, you would never know what the good parts were. Nothing would flood you with joy because everything would be the same across the board. Even. Which isn't a life, it's just...things happening to you.

that's okay!

[panatipata]

[Minato tilted his head a little and considered if this life were really a life at all, but that idea was too frightening to doubt, so he shoved it aside and concluded that yes, he was living a life worth living.]

That's kind of sad too, but it's for the best even if it hurts. It makes the good things better.

[That's what she said, but he repeated it to help him remember.]

I know you set up this area for anyone who's hurt, so I think it's working. I should let you get to other people too since it's important.

[Or more important.]

[beautifullies]

Thank you. But do come back if you need anything.

[panatipata]

I'd like to. Thank you.

[He bowed his head quickly and then took off. He wouldn't get the chance to come back though since the game was going to be over and he'd have to be ferried off back home.]