entrancelogs | Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore

Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore | OPEN

Who: E V E R Y O N E (Including our 4th wall guests!)
Where: Everywhere, one both Mirror and Real Side!
When: December 12th - December 18th (WEEK ONE)
Rating: PG-13, warn if going higher
Summary: This year's Ewaymas celebration rolls out the way it usually does, with intense decorating, a sudden snowfall and...far more arrivals than usual! New faces and old fill the mansion - but why would Wonderland bring so many people at once? And why do some of them remember Wonderland?
The Story:

On the evening before December 12th, the captives of Wonderland might be awoken by a loud commotion. Some of it is typical Ewaymas noise, likely familiar to anyone who has been in Wonderland for more than a year – construction sounds and jingle bells as Wonderland decks its own halls quite literally. Garland and lights race down the walls and down the stairs, and stockings appear on the walls for each and every person in Wonderland, embroidered with their names. There are decorative candles everywhere, and all sorts of decorations for every conceivable winter holiday, even if it does not align perfectly to the dates of Ewaymas. Time isn't real, so there will be menorahs and dreidels and Star of Davids even though Hanukkah ended two days prior. And of course, in the front hall, growing straight out of the floor, is a large decorated tree full of ornaments for everyone. And as always, it will have snowed heavily overnight, bringing all of the snow Wonderland will have between now and spring.

There is a second source of commotion in the night though – the sound of a crowd.

Over the course of the night, dozens of new arrivals will appear in Wonderland. Some for the first time. Some wondering how they managed to return with their memories. Others stumbling in with no recollection of ever having been here. Some might be friends from other timelines, other possibilities, and some might even be doubles of people who are already in Wonderland. It's strange for Wonderland to drag so many people into the mansion at once, but everything seems to indicate that they are supposed to be there. They have their own network devices and even have their own stockings on the wall and their own ornaments on the tree – by all accounts, it seems Wonderland expects that they'll be staying, and is treating them like any other new arrivals. Please, make them feel at home and help them settle in nicely.

The first few days will be for catching up with old friends and enjoying the decorations and settling into Wonderland. However, within a couple of days the decorations will start to glitch, much the way corrupted computer graphics might. Lights might change abruptly from multi-color to blue or white, entire décor styles will abruptly change, candle flames will flicker on and off like broken fluorescent lights, and any singing decorations might loop on a beat or two over and over putting you into an eternal hell. Wonderland doesn't seem to be able to stick to one motif, and it can't stop changing. These glitches are occurring on both the Real Side of Wonderland and the Mirror Side.

By the 15th, these glitches will include entire rooms changing into different holiday scenes. These scenes will all be of characters at various winter holidays in the past, the present (in their world), or a possible future. At this point in the event, characters will still be able to navigate the basic mansion and be able to exit these moments easily. These scenes cannot be interacted with – Wonderland seems to consider them another form of decorating. Unlike previous events of this type, these scenes will not loop at first. They will play once, and then Wonderland will glitch and correct itself to be the room it is supposed to be. The scene might play again, but it will be in a different location if it does.

By this point, Wonderland is having an increasingly difficult time holding itself together in a way that makes geographical sense. You might exit one room, even a room that was not previously playing a scene, and find yourself in the kitchen or on the roof instead of in the hallway. You might open a door that you were sure led to your room only to see a ten foot drop to the grounds outside.

This is the mingle log for WEEK ONE! For more information on this part of the event or any questions, please head over to the plot post, or check out our Fourth Wall Master Post for your other Fourth Wall event needs! Prose or [action brackets] are welcome. Please clearly indicate whether your character is on the Real Side or Mirror Side in your top levels. And of course, have fun! ♥

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Lowell's expression just kind of falls. He is truly hoping for an answer that isn't going to mean going back on his word, the kind of thing where he isn't going to have to accept that he's the reason another kid has died.

"Right so... if you asked for a dog from a pound, and focused on that, would that be what you get?"

He knows he sounds like a mad man, but he has to try and find out.

He absolutely sounds like a crazy person, but Louis will just...roll along with it. He;s been asked weirder stuff and the guy doesn't seem that bad. He's not asking about mass murder or anything, so-

"I don't know, I've never asked it for an animal before. I mean, you could try? I know they don't give you anything specifically from home, but who knows. Magic's weird."

Sighing, Lowell leans against the wall, clunking his head back against the wall. Shoving his hands in his pockets, knowing that he can't ignore the hunger forever but that doesn't make it easy to do this not knowing where they come from.

"I don't need specific things. I just need... specifically not things," he admits, trying to think this through. "What do people do here for those that have medical needs? Like if they need a specific medication, or they're on a special diet? What happens then?"

"Well, if you're ever worried how you'll fit into Wonderland, lemmie promise you right now that you've already got the nonsense talk down pat. So congrats on that, Dude."

At least he gets a little more specific. Louis' brow furrows.

"What...you mean like...being lactose intolerant or something? Because you can ask the closets for that, I think. Maybe? Or you could ask someone else to cook it. We got cooks here."

"It's not nonsense, it's just..." He shakes his head, trying to find a way to put this without just telling everyone he plays for "Team Z" as Blaine put it.

"Okay, you know the difference between beef and veal? One is grown, one is a baby. Some don't want to eat veal. Or they only want free range so they had a better life. You never know though where it comes from or who does without, right? I'm kind of in that place. I don't want to get my food from the wrong sources, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do here if I can't know the source."

And yet he knows. He'll eat it no matter what it is, and not risk what happens if he doesn't eat.

None of this makes a lick of sense to Louis, but he has spent the last eight years eating whatever the hell food he could and always being just on the edge of starvation. As far as he's concerned, this guy is being super fussy with his food and that's such an alien concept to him by now that he's not getting in there.

"So you're like...a hippie?"

He's just throwing possible explanations at the guy until something makes some kind of sense.

"I mean...I don't know. Unless you want to like..grow your food yourself, there's always gonna be that question about where it came from. It's probably better to not think about it."

Edited 2018-12-16 01:24 (UTC)

He sighs, closing his eyes. If only that would work.

"I can't grow a human," he finally says, trying not to tense up while thinking about what he's saying. He's talked about it with Liv and Ravi but they're both already knew.

"You're going to think I'm nuts but... I need human brains, and the last thing I want to do is get people killed in some world because I asked the closet for brains. Okay?"

Had he not already met R, Louis wouldn't have made the connection to 'I live on brains' with 'the undead'. Walkers eat everything, they're not fussy. So long as something is alive, they'll eat everything they can. It's pretty gross.

Unfortunately for Lowell, he has met R, and he's very aware of a certain favouring of grey matter for the undead in other worlds. He visibly tenses- his hand moving to the opening of his coat, ready to grab Chairles at a moment's notice.

Still, this guy is talking, like R does- and he clearly doesn't want to kill people- which is frankly a bonus. But he's lived in a zombie-infested hellscape since he was nine and you don't manage to do that by letting your guard down around the dead.

"Sooooo you're a zombie then," the word still feels strange on his tongue, it's not the word he knows for them- but then, they aren't walkers, it makes sense to have a different name for them. "Do you know a guy called R?"

Important question, there. Most of the undead in R's world sound like assholes who are slowly learning not to be assholes- as they gain their humanity. This guy seems more...with it, but maybe he's further along than R, somehow, who knows.

Lowell sighs, shaking his head. "I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted to do that, why would I even talk about it?" Not that it's entirely convincing. Blaine talks about it a lot and he hurts a lot of people so maybe not the best argument.

"But yeah, I'm a zombie." Frowning though at that, shaking his head. "I know a few whose name start... Wait, is it short for Ravi? Indian by way of Britain medical examiner? That R?"

Please let it be that R. He sounds so hopeful that it is.

"Trust me, if I thought you were gonna hurt me, I'd already be protecting myself. Seeeeen as you're holding I conversation, I'm not."

R doesn't know what his R stands for, but, at the risk of assuming, he's pretty certain it doesn't stand for 'Ravi'.

"Nope, pretty sure not. Unless your Ravi looks like a half-dead American white guy in his twenties, I'm gonna guess no on that one."

He considers a little more, before relaxing a little. He knows he can grab Chairles if her needs to, no need start being hostile now.

"I'm Louis. Uh- a survivor from a world where the dead started walking and eating people and definitely do not have cognitive reasoning," he offers a smile. "Nice to see some worlds seem to be doing better on that front."

He laughs, shaking his head. "No, nothing like that, and not a zombie. He's a doctor that's been helping us to try and find a cure," he admits, offering a tight smile. "Then, no. I don't know this R. I don't know many zombies. Two in fact. The one that made me, and the one working with Ravi."

Liv. Already he acutely misses her.

"I'm Lowell, and we're maybe kind of at the beginning of it all? We don't know. Best I can tell it started at a party due to bad drugs and worse energy drinks." Least that's what he's been told. "If better so long as you have the twenty five grand a month for brains," he says. "My trust fund is nearly toast." Not to mention learning where they came from.

"Oh. Well, if you come across him, he's a cool dude. Could probably use someone a little more like him."

Louis understands the world R lives in, but he's from the other side of things. There's always going to be parts he just won't get. It's done nothing to lessens their friendship, of course, but still.

"That...sounds like a really fucking weird way to start the dead rising. I don't know what happened with us? Like...one day, it just happened. But I know we all have it, whatever it is."

Which makes the idea of dying here super not fun at all.

"Wow, so you...pay for your brains? Like...like going to a McDonalds?"

Other zombies. It's so odd in so many ways, mostly because Blaine had done well in educating them in how to look normal, and keeping them apart in many ways. Hell, he wouldn't have met Liv if she had tanned and dyed as he always had. Though she looks much better as a blonde than he ever did.

That makes him frown, head canting. "So no deadly scratch thing? Huh, then maybe not the same. Ours takes a scratch... or fluids. Which makes your sex life something new and entirely absent,' he adds, wincing. "And not thing to say to a kid. Sorry."

He nods though at that, though he waggles a hand back and forth. "They home deliver."

"If a walker scratches you, or bites you, you get a nasty ass fever that burns you up til you die and turn," Louis shrugs. "But we die, we turn. Unless someone destroyed your brain beforehand. It's...uh considered a common courtesy, doing that."

Leaving someone to turn is just about the worst thing you can do to a person. It's condemning them to a not-life-not-death existence. He grimaces at that comment.

"Yeah, thanks for that dazzling mental image. I'm keeping that one in my memory scrapbook to cherish forever."

This is bizarre. So so bizarre.

"And living people are...okay with it? I mean, just...brains to order? Where do they even come from?"

"Everyone... then how do you have brains to ea... Right. No one eats. They're mindless and kill everything, or die. Right. Got it." And he does. It's a cold image, and one he's seen in enough movies to recognize.

"We have to be scratched, and so far those that can are selective. Either avoiding it at all costs, or only doing so to those can afford to pay their extortion," he admits.

"Living people don't know. We're secretive and hidden," he admits. "Like I said, I only knew the two, and one of them made me."

"Thaaat's pretty much how it goes, yeah. Walkers just eat every part of everything that's got a pulse. They for sure don't hold a conversation."

Sometimes he wonders if his world is the exception to the rule. There are now two undead world where the undead are still people. Where they can still cling to their humanity.

"But like...where do the brains come from? It's not like there's human farms or anything...are there?"

"Should I apologize then for being fairly educated then?" It's a cheap joke but he can't help himself. It amuses him in ways that perhaps it shouldn't, all things considered. He can only imagine what someone whose dealt with a zombie apocalypse might feel.

He winces then though, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's the problem. Someone I know gets hers from the morgue. She's a medical examiner. I... I thought my supplier, the guy that turned me, that he got his from the same place. From those that have died, but recently I found out he was killing homeless kids or them." He sighs, still hating himself for being that kind of an idiot and not truly looking for the truth.

"Why I worry about just asking these closets for just anything. Where does it come from, you know?"

"I don't know, you planning on holding it above the poor, uneducated walkers out there? Gonna show some educated snobbery?"

He can live with jokes, jokes are easy. Much easier than the harsh reality of...everything else.

""Oh. Wow, that's uh-" Louis grimaces, his fellows kids are always something of a tender topic- much more so those that are less fortunate. "That's super not cool and now I totally understand why you're not super happy with the whole closet situation. Wow. "

"Would they know if I did? I mean, are they capable of knowing that I'm doing it?"

He's never seen a Romero, but he's curious if they actually would know if he was holding it over their heads.

"But the other option is... I rot out and then I'm a danger. I was hoping there was an answer," he says with a sigh. "I'm guessing there's not though."

"Honestly? Probably not. They're pretty mindless."

Which makes the whole talking to the undead from other worlds way weirder for him. It's not supposed to be this way, but hell if he doesn't wish it was. Maybe if there was a real cure back home, they could have this.

"I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and guess what 'rot out' means, and yeaaaah we don't want that any more than we want one of the people from my world dying and turning. Bad times for everyone, " it's something he's genuinely worried about happening- especially with how set on killing them all Wonderland is sometimes. "Sorry, dude. Wish I could help more."

"I've heard, when we don't eat often enough, that's how we get. You slowly start to deteriorate, mentally and physically, until even brains won't bring you back," he admits, cautious in tone and the way he's holding himself. "Never seen one though."

And he has his way, he never will.

"Naw, don't be sorry. You helped, and you answered my question, and you didn't go all nuts learning what I am. All good in my book."

"Trust me when I tell you that you emphatically don't wanna see that. It's not a good time for anyone."

They might be part of the background of life for him at this point, but he's still happier with them not around. He smiles, giving a shrug.

"I got a little experience at least, plus I try not to be too judgey. Life's too short for petty shit like that."

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Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore | OPEN

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