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! ♥

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's staring at a shitty cardboard package of pizza rolls. The kind you throw on a pan and toss in an oven and twenty minutes later, half of them are molten lava and the other half are frozen rocks that make your teeth ache. He's staring at them, marveling at the fact that he has this within his fucking grasp.]

[Someone speaks his name, and - the fucked up thing is that he actually recognizes her. He recognizes her because he's met a Clem before. He's met two.]

[She knows him. Does he know her?]

Clem?

Yeah.

( That hopeful feeling in her chest finds more strength as soon as he looks at her and says her name. He doesn't look confused. It doesn't occur to her that there are other places where people are pulled in from other worlds. It doesn't occur to her to think there are other versions of her out there either.

And she can't quite keep the hope out of her voice. The vulnerability that shines through when she thinks he might be the same Tim that she knows (the one who told her about killing his best friend after she'd confessed to killing someone to share in it with her, the one who she called family and she can count on her hand the number of people she's called that in years and years). She starts to bridge the distance between them, and she smiles as that hope starts to build too strong, too fast. She should know better. )

Yeah, it's me. ( Her voice is uncharacteristically hoarse. ) You really came back?

[Oh no.]

[It's not a pit in his chest. It's not really anything. It's the bitter acknowledgment that he's going to be a disappointment, because there's this awful look of hope and no one's really looked at him like that before, he doesn't think.]

[And he has to be the one to shoot it down.]

I'm...sorry. [He hasn't earned a lump to the throat. Hasn't earned a black hole that swallows up his lungs and compresses his chest. His shoulders hunch, and he can't quite look at her.]

I don't think I'm...the same guy you knew.

( Clementine doesn't look away. She had prepared herself for the reality before she walked up to him. After all, Tim's been gone- he's been gone longer than a month. People don't remember when it's longer than a month. She'd prepared herself, but then he knew her name, and she didn't know what to think.

Something sticks in her throat (sharp and wrong). Something heavy weighs in the center of her chest like steel, like lead.

Her eyes burn. It's grief she never quite let herself feel. It's hard when people aren't exactly dead. They're just gone. Hell, it's hard when they die too to really feel it. She shakes her head. )

You've never been in Wonderland. I thought that had to be the case, but when you knew my name, I sorta thought- ( her shoulders tighten. )

You don't have anything to be sorry about.

[There's something to be said about the way he can pinpoint grief, when it happens. The exact points where it flowers out inside their chest and folds around them and glints in their eyes and calcifies in their words. He's gotten too adept at pinpointing it, and he's still not any good at fending it back.]

I've met...other people who came and went. Forgot they ever knew me.

[Sometimes it's terrifying. Mostly it's a relief.]

It's never good.

( Clementine swallows it all back. It's part to protect herself from it. It's part because it's not like any of this shit is his fault. She scrubs a hand over her face and then pulls herself up against the counter, sitting on the edge of it. )

No, it's not good. It's pretty shitty. But it's not your fault.

( She breathes out carefully, jaw locking. )

And never thought I'd see him-- you again at all. So it's still good to see you even if you don't know... I mean, you actually do know a version of me, I guess?

I've met you twice now.

[Feels...insensitive to say aloud. Like, sure, there are millions of you out there, right? Infinite versions of the same person. And what are the odds that one of them meets another one of him - and that she actually...]

[She must miss him. The thought is as horrifying as it is unfamiliar.]

[He can't ever be him. Can't even be the right Tim.]

You're older than them, though.

...what the fuck.

( Clementine makes a face, pressing her hand briefly to it, before she releases that same held breath again. She doesn't understand it. There's no understanding it.

These worlds. These different versions of people- different versions of her. Of him. How are they supposed to make sense of it all? Usually she tries not to, but it's difficult when it's all kind of smacking her in the face right now. With a Tim who doesn't remember, but he's still Tim enough that she finds him familiar, but has to remind herself that he doesn't know her in the same way, hasn't lived what- what she lived with the Tim from before. She can't expect that same level of familiarity here so she tries to draw in, put walls up. ...but it's still Tim so it's hard to say how effective she is at it. )

What place were you at before this? Is that where you met me? ...the other mes? I didn't know there was anywhere other than Wonderland where people were pulled in from different worlds. And you looked like you haven't seen food in a long time.

It's a...long story.

[It's complicated. It's complicated because he was worn down and tired before he was even yanked from one world to another, and he figured that this was just a detour, a bump in the road. It wasn't.]

[Something like two years later, and it still isn't.]

It was a Castle, first. Then...I ended up on an island. Archipelago. So, yeah. There are a lotta different worlds out there. Lotta different versions of the same people.

...fuck.

That's complicated. As if life isn't fucked up enough without throwing in other worlds and people and shit...

( Clementine folds her arms across her chest as she tries to process. That's at least two other places that he's been that- She doesn't know what to make of it. She still has to process he has met other hers. Maybe there's no processing that. )

Do... you want to go back to where you were just from?

[Talking about this kind of thing is easier on her, he'd venture. Less personal, and therefore less likely to trip her up. Less likely to catch her unawares, and less immediate.]

[That's easier. He doesn't resist it. Lets her turn the conversation around to him, if she'd prefer that.]

I've got people I need to get back to.

[...that might not be better.]

( Clementine looks curious at the answer. It doesn't surprise her he'd have people he needs to get back to. They all made a family, a group here together after all. It'd make sense he'd have another one in the place he was just from. )

I wish I could say I knew what was happening. There's not usually this many people all at once.

( And so part of her doesn't trust it to last. She feels she ought to be more defensive, ought to prepare herself for it. )

Maybe you will get to go back to your people.

People come through to here regularly?

[That seems to be the default way of things - in the archipelago, people emerge the same time, roughly, each month. Different amounts, but it's always a varying and unbroken spill, regular as things can be on a deserted island.]

[It seems to be the case with most places like these, he's learning.]

They do, but not in- not this many at once. Once a week, we might see a couple people come in or none at all. There's no set time for it.

( And this is definitely an influx that's not like the usual. She saw the network post, and it was the opposite of reassuring.

Some more shit is going to happen.

She can sense it. )

[He hums his quiet acknowledgment. Looks down at the table, takes in the angles of the place that were constructed easily, concretely. Everything here is of reasonable quality. It's not hunks of wood stapled together, battered into something vaguely approximating a table that will work relatively well until someone tries to kick it over. It's...simple. Utilitarian. Clean. The kind of thing you'd buy at an Ikea.]

[The shift is fucking with him, he's pretty sure, though he's not sure how to put it into words. If at all.]

Do you run into a lotta people like this? Like - [He sweeps one hand up to gesture at himself. Like me? Washed in from another world, or, possibly, just some secondary version of someone she's already met?]

I- No, not really. I never met anyone from a world like this one before. ( that was entirely new to know there are other worlds that bring people in from different... worlds.

and bring in different versions, and all of that, it's enough to make her head hurt a little bit. there are other versions of her out there in... other worlds like wonderland.

weird. )

Usually, if people are gone for a long time, if they do show up again, they won't remember their time here.

I guess you could say this isn't so different.

[He still doesn't know her - not this her, anyway, and that's something that he still doesn't know how best to...process, exactly. It would stand to reason that there are, in fact, multiples of almost everyone out there, knowing what he knows about the way the multiverse unfolds. It's just a strange thought to be confronted with the reality that there are, in fact, other versions of...him.]

[One was always too much for him. More than one is just pushing it.]

[One side of his mouth twists into a bittersweet, rueful, right-handed thing - not quite a deprecating smile, but certainly evoking one.]

Maybe I'll forget too.

( Clementine stares at him for a long moment in the aftermath of what he says with the expression on his face (the one she can't quite place, but she isn't sure she's meant to). Her arms fold further in on herself as she bites down on her lower lip. )

Do you want to forget?

( That is the ultimate question after all. )

Doesn't matter much if I want to or not.

[He has a habit of forgetting things anyway. Memories slipping in one ear. Out the other. Not quite so bad as it used to be, now that he's steadily medicated, but still. Still. It's a concern.]

Do you?

I know. This place doesn't like to give anyone choices, and I know you--

( Well, the Tim she knew here told her about how he had issues with memories before, losing them. Clementine shakes her head. )

No. Not that there's a choice at all in Wonderland. Losing memories is a big part of this place.

[He feels like he should laugh at that one. Losing memories, a big part of this place - as if that's something that should unsettle him. As if that's something to be afraid of. As if he's not well-accustomed to precisely that, and larger swathes than any genius loci could steal away from him.]

You know I what? [He might be a liar, but that goes both ways.]

[He takes everyone's secrets to his grave. For as many times as he must.]

...you've lost your memories before is all. The version of you that was here before told me about it.

( He told her about a lot, and she told him about a lot too. It was the kind of talking that she's not able to do with most people honestly, and so she remembers all those conversations.

They stay with her. The things he told her. )

[He got to telling her about that, did he?]

[Hard to say if that had to do with some kind of...mutual trust, or what. Given her reaction to him, he'd assume as much. Something important. It wasn't just any old acquaintanceship.]

[It really wasn't.]

He was right. I guess that's something he had to live with here, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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