Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us no more | OPEN

[vitaelamorte]

Who: E V E R Y O N E (Including our 4th wall guests!)
Where: Everywhere, one both Mirror and Real Side!
When: December 19th - December 26th (ICly December 25th) (WEEK TWO)
Rating: PG-13, warn if going higher
Summary: After a particularly intense week of holiday cheer and holiday scenes, Wonderland simply cannot take any more. The form it takes will no longer hold. Wonderland sheds its holiday skin and remains in the barest form of itself.
The Story:

As of the 19th, no one will be able to use the network to make posts. A new error message will appear on all screens, but again, it's probably fine.

This will quickly prove to be a problem though, as Wonderland has completely abandoned any sign of the signature mansion or its grounds. All of a sudden, it cannot hold itself together any more. At this point, Wonderland has become a series of holiday past, present, and future scenes instead of a collection of rooms, and none of them connect together in any sensical, linear way. If you find a friend wandering, you may want to stay with them. It will prove difficult to seek out people on purpose (though very easy to stumble across people by accident).

In between the various scenes, instead of the halls of the mansion, are one of three voids. Gravity does not seem to exist in them, and characters will float, swim, or spin around until they find a new scene to be in. There is no up or down, and no ground to stand on. Scenes are entered suddenly and without warning, going from floating along to suddenly standing in a memory or a vision (unless you have come from the second void). Characters can also find themselves traveling from void to void, but there is no precise place where they overlap, and if they turn around they will not be able to return to the void they were previously in. It is almost as though perhaps, the voids and the scenes are moving around, and that Wonderland no longer has a static form.

Wonderland will remain this way until the end of the event. What happens then? You'll have to wait and see. ♥ For now though, please enjoy the horrible voids that make up all of Wonderland at the moment. If you have any questions, please report to the plot post or check out our Fourth Wall Masterpost for all your other fourth wall needs!

Comments

[ssmisery]

[Real Lapis declines to answer that question, although she has her opinions. She doesn't know what to think about anything that just happened, frankly, but she can sort that out in due time. Right now the priority is floating her way over to get ahold of Peridot. Lapis really HAS been looking for quite a while, and sure as heck doesn't want to lose her floating off into this void. That would be bad.]

Are you okay?

[She seems unhurt, certainly, but it's worth making sure because there's more to it than that and what's happening to Wonderland is terrifying. And, maybe, because she doesn't know what just happened or what it may mean. And maybe because there's the expectation, when someone has apparently spent time alone with a Mirror, that something harmful must have happened. Lapis may indeed be upset about all this, but yep, it's good to establish those priorities first.]

[slapfight]

[Peridot clings to Lapis's waist like a tiny green limpet who is worried that she'll be left alone again or that another Lapis will flee from her.] I'm fine! Don't worry about me. I'm just glad you're okay. I was so focused on trying to find the source code to Wonderland, I wasn't even thinking-

[The words fall out of her in a stream that ends with a sort of catlike keening noise. This has went from being a weird adventure into madness and a discussion of Mirror personhood to being a lot of unexpected stress she can't really process yet. And she was worried about Lapis. It was just second to her original goal of figuring out how to fix the problem, and she's realizing now that was wrong and a little dangerous.] I'm... I'm sorry.

[It feels weird to say, even if she means it. She's sorry for abandoning Lapis in order to do her job? But it's true, isn't it? Even with them working towards a beneficial balance to their respective interests and Peridot loosening her chokehold on needing Lapis to be happy in order to validate herself, it still feels wrong to choose a task over her friend.]

[ssmisery]

[Lapis floats there numbly for a moment, allowing both Peridot and herself to hold on. She is shaken and oddly empty, as if she still has to determine exactly how shitty to feel and the sensation is just waiting to be finalized to click into place. But somehow, Peridot seems more immediately upset right now, which is weird for all kinds of reasons. It's always strange to find herself on that side of the interaction.

There are many good things to be upset about, but she has the feeling that what's really kicking it in for Peridot extends beyond her view. She has the feeling that she doesn't actually grasp what the apology is for, despite being given reasonable options. She doesn't really want to belabor this point right now when nobody's equipped to dig into things, but there's been no closure either, and it seems like she has to.]

Was she telling the truth?

[She knows the answer, as far as the fact that Peridot's apparently been talking to her Mirror for a while now; that's clearly either true or near enough to have a story behind it. There's no getting around the fact that that hurts, and that it's going to have to be a bit of an accusation. But then there are deeper, long-term implications. Was she telling the truth about lying? About hating the Real Lapis? About not fighting over Peridot?? About being different? Those are the questions that won't get sorted through today. Nobody's equipped. Regardless, they are there.]

[slapfight]

Yee..aah.

[She drawls the words, a bit guiltily, and maybe even a bit uncertainly. She doesn't really know, does she? She thought Lapis's Mirror was on the up and up, but was she? Was she just a replacement because the Peridot she shared space with was intolerable, and she was jealous of her Real's relationship?

Well, that's perhaps a long wandering road to egotism, so she cleaves that out of her head to be dealt with later.] My Mirror is awful, and she seemed... nice. It wasn't a secret. [This is a lie. She makes a soft sound and then course corrects.] It wasn't meant to be a secret. I just didn't know how to bring it up...

[ssmisery]

I know.

[It hurts, but she's not stupid and not currently flipping her lid too hard to think, so she gets it. A lot of it, frankly, is being able to blame the Mirror herself; there's no telling how much she may have manipulated. Peridot would have been an easy mark. Like it or not, Lapis is aware that she doesn't always take things well, and Mirrors, of all things, were already such a difficult subject... None of that means it was right to go behind her back -- after they've gotten so much better at communicating! after she's been trying to figure out how to approach the idea! -- but it makes far too much sense to be comfortable with.

It's still kinda weird that she's not flipping her lid more, but there are probably reasons for that too, and there are definitely reasons this is better. After all, Lapis has tried that route before. Here and now, she's standing by the priorities she already decided.]

We can work it out, okay? I just wanted to find you.

[slapfight]

[Peridot's lower lip wibbles a bit and there's a brief moment where it looks like she might actually cry- there's water in the corner of her eyes, smearing up her visor, and she looks away to rub up underneath it. She's so relieved, even though she knows she's in the wrong and that this is yet another thing she has to deal with properly at some point.]

Right. We should... Find some place safe. Just for the moment, and then we can keep looking together. [In a gray void surrounded by windows to other times and places. Maybe one of them is quiet. Tentatively, she reaches out a hand for Lapis to take.]

there, NOW the thing about time and I wannit anyway

[ssmisery]

[Lapis takes the hand with more feeling than the numb hold. She doesn't disagree, although the holiday scenes are mostly obnoxious and she has little hope of actually finding a haven when Wonderland is falling apart. The grey void also has major downsides, so they might as well not hang around longer than they need to. Which might be slightly longer, but that's all right. She meets Peridot's eyes with an expression that, if not at 'cheered up' yet, is definitely less glum.

M'Lapis was right about one thing, possibly due to personally ensuring it; she was kind of just an obstacle in the road. Since nobody is equipped to sort through her shit right now, the Real Thing is indeed much more interested in her own concerns. No, she's had a goal all this time, and that little encounter wasn't even the only hurdle getting there, but there are also reasons she feels far more able than usual to power through. When Lapis is really determined about something she's damn well determined; this is more important than any Mirror drama or breakdown of reality, because she decided so and will not allow otherwise.

And it's not as happy a moment as it should have been, but still such a relief to be able to say it. That's what all of this was for.]

I met someone from home. She said I come back.

yaaaaas time to sort through those issues

[slapfight]

[Peridot stops her frantic hunt for a scene that looks less saccharine and more suitable to her purposes, and with her hand so firmly around Lapis's, the sudden tension is obvious. Bismuth never mentioned Lapis being back, because Peridot had fifteen other things to think about. The Diamonds, getting poofed... Steven. That Bismuth had been hunting for two gems hadn't really occurred to her.]

Bismuth. [It's not a question. She feels like she would have known if someone else were out there spreading rumors, and it makes sense in the way that Peridot would have imagined it if she even a little bit of context for Lapis leaving beyond her word.] You... You came back to fight the Diamonds?

[That is a question, because she wants to hear it from Lapis even if it's what Lapis has gleaned secondhand from a Crystal Gem who has no reason to lie.]

[ssmisery]

I came back to fight the Diamonds!

[Even now, amidst all this, she still has to laugh saying those words, because it just sounds insane. That is the EXACT thing she threw her life away in order to not do. It's still terrifying to contemplate, even!

It's just that that was a bad decision nonetheless, and this whole time, Lapis has never fully grasped that she had the ability to take it back.]

[slapfight]

We both fought the Diamonds. [Peridot has to laugh too, because it's infectious and because she's avoided really processing this in any real capacity before now. She's so far removed from any impending Diamond threat or decision to stand and fight therein that the idea is ludicrous to her. She can see where she'd make the choice to stay and fight, but she can't imagine doing it.] We saved Earth.

[So maybe Steven did the hard part and she got poofed for her troubles- Lapis, too, probably- but still. No one right now can question them. Even they don't know how much they did. Bismuth doesn't know everything.]

[ssmisery]

We fought the Diamonds and didn't get shattered!

[Or corrupted! Or imprisoned within a selection of household objects! What's a little poofing, all things considered.

It is true that neither of these two were technically there, and Bismuth's intel was limited -- she didn't know all the character arcs going around -- so many details are still up in the air. But still, even vicariously, it's something darn near close to the experience of fighting and winning. That's a very good starting point.]