+ Why, you're only a sort of thing in its dream! | MINGLE LOG +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE (Reals AND Mirrors!)
Where: D R E A M S I D E
When: June 6th - June 12th
Rating: PG-13, warn if going higher!
Summary: Mingle log for the Dream Side event! After the girls’ seance, every single person in Wonderland, no matter what they were doing at the time, will black out. When they awake, they will find themselves in a strange and twisted world outside of time - a different one than usual.
The Story:

After the girls’ seance, every single person in Wonderland, no matter what they were doing at the time, will black out. When they awake, they will find themselves in a strange and twisted world outside of time - a different one than usual. Elements may seem familiar, but it's clearly a different place.

Welcome, Mirrors and Reals, to DREAM SIDE. The sky above is dark and speckled with far-off stars but the world below is unnaturally lit and bright. There is a mansion at its center, but it is warped and unusual, as though someone stretched it like taffy, but if you try to enter it, you'll find that the door is not just locked - it appears to be painted on, as though it is just static scenery. It isn't a mansion that can be entered, just a cartoon-ish mansion cobbled together from dozens of memories.

Dream Side, as you might have guessed from the name, is not a static place. It is built from the scraps of dreams of those who cross into that side of Wonderland. Characters on this side of Wonderland are not asleep, but the world they are in is shaped by the contents of their dreams. Unlike the glass between Real Side and Mirror Side, there does not seem to be an obvious thing connecting this Side of Wonderland to the other two - at least, not something visible.

They are not alone in this world either - because the girls were conducting a seance, they have inadvertently called upon the dead. For each time your character has died a mansion death, there will be a ghostly copy of them wandering Dream Side. They will look as standard ghosts do - pale and translucent, looking as they did the moment they died. They will have a tendency to haunt their current living version (and those who care about them), but they will not be able to speak directly with them. For Mirrors, these ghosts can be Unmade versions of themselves, if they were ever Unmade. Some ghosts might be hostile and some might just gently haunt from a distance - it will depend on the character and what they would do if they were a ghost how they behave.

Behold, the world your dreams have built!

NORTH

• Mabel Land Castle


• Sparkly Horse Library


• Clementine's House

NORTH-NORTHEAST

• Fabletown

NORTHEAST

• The Unknown


• The Milano


• Avengers Tower


• Hala / The Supreme Intelligence


• Vault 111

EAST

• Main Street


• Holiday Star - Lighthouse


• The Amagi Inn

SOUTHEAST

• School University


• Secret CDC Lab

SOUTH

• Trost


• The Abattoir


• The Hanged Man

SOUTH-SOUTHWEST

• Dead End Flats


• Prime Kindergarten


• The Man Cave

SOUTHWEST

• Craigh Na Dun

WEST

• The Casino


• Flooded City

NORTHWEST

• Spooky Murder Bridge


• Rokkenjima


• WYBS 89.3 FM

For more details, and for the FAQ thread for this event, please see the plot post! We'll be periodically checking the location thread so we can add to this log as needed.

Comments

[thereporter]

"My 'place' isn't really mine, either. I mean, it's from my world, but I didn't even really work there."

She kind of butted her head into the radio station business, sure, but that was only because she was a reporter and newspapers weren't exactly selling.

"What's it supposed to be?"

[ssmisery]

Hmm. Lapis hasn't talked to this person before, and therefore has no idea what she does or doesn't already know about gems. Also, while she herself doesn't raise the subject often, she's heard Peridot complain plenty about the difficulty of explaining these matters, and how humans tend to respond to the word kindergarten.

But, then, unlike Peridot, Lapis doesn't actually care what anyone thinks or understands, so whatever. "A Kindergarten. It's where people like me are made."

[thereporter]

Julia raises her eyebrows: questioning, but not dismissive. Everyone here comes from somewhere pretty bizarre, and Julia is pretty sure her life would make just about as much sense and what this girl just said.

And granted, she is blue, so there are weirder things it could have been.

"Can I venture to assume that means it's the literal translation of a kindergarten? Not the school kind?"

[ssmisery]

Lapis tilts her head as we all avoid thinking too hard about the implications of these etymological roots and whether it means Homeworld has, like, a Gem German spoken somewhere. Gemrman?

"Well, it is basically kind of a garden. Just, you know, with legions of fully-formed battle-ready soldiers instead of carrots."

That, and the whole thing where the Kindergarten leaves the land barren; the atmosphere here would be dead and gloomy even on a good day. In that regard the comparison is a bit grim. But then planetary invasion is never exactly pretty.

[thereporter]

As exciting as the etymology is, especially to a journalist, now definitely does not seem like the time to pick it apart. Especially after she says that. Julia looks a little skeptical, taking another look at her.

"So, you're telling me you're part of a legion of battle-ready soldiers?" She's definitely not a carrot, so that probably is what she's telling her.

[ssmisery]

Lapis gets a distant look in her eye for a moment, the faint suggestion of a bitter smile. "I wasn't made to fight," she says, running her gaze over the exit holes covering the walls, "but I'm pretty sure everyone here was. This was one of the ones on Earth, if you're curious."

[thereporter]

"Ones on Earth?" She nods, following her gaze over the walls. "As far as I know, there isn't anything on my Earth like this. Granted, there's a lot of things about my own Earth I'm learning I didn't know."

It's not really any weirder than a mysterious dome erecting itself over an entire town, after all.

"So what was this? Some kind of invasion plan?"

[ssmisery]

Lapis shrugs, which is apparently her answer to the first bit. Lots of people come from lots of Earths, that's pretty much normal by now; she doesn't expect most humans to have that history. But whatever it is, Earth somehow still means things to a lot of people.

Her actual answer is flat and matter of fact. "Yep."

Yeah, that's it. No hedging, no approval or condemnation, no attempt to clarify exactly how involved she herself may or may not have been. There can be a lot contained in one little blunt affirmative, but then again that could never be the whole of it either. In the end, it just means it's up to Julia to decide exactly what she might want to pursue.

[thereporter]

"Oh."

Julia doesn't know it yet, but there is a day when the concept of an alien invasion would hit closer to home. Perhaps, with those memories, her reaction would have been more hostile, more offensive. But this Julia hasn't gone head to head with a fleet of invading aliens of her own yet, and Lapis is at least offering honesty. So Julia's response isn't exactly warm, but it isn't angry, either.

"You said you weren't made to fight, though. Does that mean you weren't part of it?"

[ssmisery]

Lapis looks up at the canyon walls again. She's not ashamed of it, although it was wrong. Out of all the things in her history that were wrong this was really just a drop in the bucket.

"My job was carving out places like this." It is, in fact, entirely possible that she was involved in making this very Kindergarten, but we don't know and she's not going to specify. "It would have looked a lot different back then. Everything on Earth did."