TDM #6 - Planned Outage

[perchancetodreammods]

TDM #6 - Planned Outage

Pardon Our Dust

Things are a little odd in the Dreamscape at the moment! Typically, newcomers are met with beautiful scenery, a note inviting them to come speak to the Dreamscape's host, an explanation about where they are, and a handy Constellation pendant connecting them to the rest of their new neighbors. But this time, there is something odd afoot, and nothing here to help you make sense of your new surroundings if you've just gotten here. Don't worry, though, it will all make sense soon! Hopefully! Just hang tight. More details to follow... probably? Oh dear.

​

This is our second Crisis Event, and as such, things are a little different from our usual fare! Details for entry will be in the prompts below, as the rules are a little different from our standard TDMs. There's also usually pictures.

DATE

2/12/2023 (ICly intended to begin 2/15/23, posted early because I love you)

THEME

Crisis Event!

QUICK NAV

Locations

Feather Info

The Outsider

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Valentine’s Day comes and goes, and the romantic atmosphere that the Dreamscape had taken on has dwindled after a good long month as the seasonal excitement begins to dwindle. Those who have been here for a while and are familiar with the Outsider’s antics will no doubt be wondering when and what the next big thing will be. They tend to begin a new and exciting project shortly after the previous one ends. However, regardless of how long you’ve been here, the announcement arriving today will more than likely come as a surprise.

A jingle plays from your Constellation pendant, and a stream of light pours from the little star. A suspended screen of light hangs in midair, displaying the Outsider. A video message.

To Bring You This Message From Our Sponsor

“Hello again, my friends!” The Outsider smiled, albeit a bit anxiously. “I hope that those of you who attended had a lovely holiday, however you chose to celebrate it. I do have a rather important bit of news to share, and it’s regarding a somewhat… unique… situation, so please listen carefully, as I will be starting the process shortly after this announcement.”

“Those of you who were here in early January might recall a certain mishap.” There were many words for the dream-shattering event that took place at the beginning of January. “Mishap” was certainly an interesting choice. Anyway, “Ever since that incident occurred, I have been working diligently to find the source of the problem and rebuild a stronger, safer, happier Dreamscape for all of us. While normally I have never fully lost control of my domain in that way, I’ve also never created anything as large scale or structured as this Dreamscape before, so all of this is new territory for me. As such, at this time, I think the best course of action would be for me to rebuild most of the Dreamscape from scratch, as much as I can without putting all of you into unmanageable conditions or giving you the boot.”

“What I intend to do is to shut down all non-essential functions. The outer structure that keeps the Dreamscape intact and separate from the Greater Illogic, the Nimbus Clouds, and parts of the Torn Oak will remain active. The rest of the Dreamscape will be--- well, a blank slate. You may find this alarming at first, but I assure you it is part of the process. While I am gone, many of the normal functionalities of the Dreamscape, including restrictions, will be non-operational. This means that in all communal areas of the Dreamscape, you all will collectively have as much control over the environment as you do your own Nimbus Cloud. So, feel free to experiment and paint the town, or lack thereof, red! Just be cautious with what you imagine, as I will not be available to correct any issues, and be respectful of one another.”

“Unfortunately I will need to be outside of the Dreamscape for this process, and thus will be unreachable, but I’m certain you all will be just fine. Have fun, be safe, and I will see you all soon!”

And then, without any further ado, the display cuts out, and the Dreamscape goes with it.

Have You Tried Turning it Off and Back On Again?

Before you can even process what’s going on, the world around you begins to break apart into tiny fragments and fall away like a dissolve effect on a bad Powerpoint. As promised, you are in very short order left standing in an empty white void. It’s a bit disorienting, hard to even tell what constitutes as the “floor” in this situation, though after a moment your brain adjusts. If you aren’t thinking too hard about it, you can almost see a flat plane of a slightly different shade of white that serves as your walking surface. The Torn Oak, with its blanched trunk and periwinkle leaves, and the cluster of fluffy pink Nimbus Clouds are all that remain. The Twisted City, the Barren Freeway, the Glass Lake, the forest, the sea, the mountain--- everything else is gone. Everything beyond the few remaining amenities appears to be just a blank, white void that goes on forever.

You have a few options here. You could retreat to your Nimbus Cloud, or take this opportunity to visit that of a friend. After all, there’s usually too much going on in the Dreamscape to spend much time dawdling around at home, so this could be a good time to visit one another. You could also explore the Torn Oak. There’s not much to it right now, but the Outsider is away and this might be an opportunity to wander their unusual home unsupervised.

Or, if you’re feeling creative, you can take this once-in-a-lifetime chance to manipulate the Dreamscape--- with no restrictions. No wish required. Rebuild places from your waking world, create impossible feats of architecture or luxurious amenities, have an adventure of your own making, or just dream up nonsense. Truly the only limitation is what you can imagine. However, when shaping the Dreamscape, take care not to let your mind stray, as you may inadvertently create something out of a nightmare.

​

Aside from continuing to observe the blacklist and common-sense trigger warning guidelines, there is no restriction on what can happen in the Dreamscape. Create your own fun, or a disaster. The choice is yours. However, the Outsider will not be available to be contacted in relation to this event and will not return until March 1st.

Just Passing Through

Another interesting effect of this little procedure is that the barrier between the Dreamscape and the rest of the dreams of every sentient being in the multiverse is now far thinner. Normally, the Outsider hand-selects everyone whose consciousness is brought into the Dreamscape, but at the moment, it seems just anyone can end up here. Perhaps you are one such member of the unfiltered rabble. (No offense, of course.)

Instead of landing where most newcomers do, you’ll find yourself wandering through a version of a certain H.C Escher art piece that is done up in pink marble tile and wrought iron. Take a staircase or find a door, any door, to be released into the strange white void from a disembodied door perched on the stump of a blanched oak tree, while the severed trunk and canopy of blue leaves loom impossibly overhead. Without the normal orientation for new arrivals, you are on your own. No personal cloud, no instructions, no explanations. Just a beautiful, terrifying tree and a bright, blank world. Maybe someone here can tell you what’s going on.

​

New arrivals entering the Dreamscape during the Planned Outage crisis event do not need to abide by normal universe rules. They do not have their own Nimbus Cloud or Constellation pendant, do not require a plot reason to be here, and are not subject to normal restrictions. They can be doubles of existing characters, can ignore cast caps, and can wake up and disappear at any time. They don’t even have to ever figure out that they are in a collective dream. They may ask to remain in the Dreamscape after the event, get stuck by accident, or disappear entirely! Additionally, this is a great time to canon-update your characters by having them wake up and come back later in their canon.

Mod Note: Feather Leaderboard

Hello friends! Earlier I made an announcement regarding a Feather Leaderboard that we'll be launching next week, and the March 1st event, which will definitely benefit from folks knowing how many feathers their characters have. If you haven't read that yet, it's pretty brief, but the gist is that the feather tracker spreadsheet is available now and we'll be checking it on Feb. 22nd to establish the leaderboard and announcing the winners with the plotting post for the March event!

The prize for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place is a special RP prompt for just those characters and a friend of their choosing, plus bragging rights, of course!

UNRELATED NOTE: I am posting this TDM a few days in advance, meaning it slightly overlaps with last month's Valentine's TDM. I would like to note that while ICly the prompts here state that the event is over, the feather bonus that was in place for Valentine's day is still in effect until Feb 15th OOCly, so you can still collect on Valentine's day threads started between now and then!

Comments

QUESTIONS/FEEDBACK

[perchancetodreammods]

:)

Princess Peach || OTA!

[peachiekeen]

The Outsider had created a uniquely interesting situation here.

They had wiped the slate completely clear, taken away all restrictions, and given everyone--- but specifically, Princess Peach Toadstool, the opportunity to create whatever pleased her with no limitations or rules?

This Dreamscape will never know what hit it!

Finding herself a nice big plot of nothing, Peach set her imagination to work. No one she'd ever spoken to here had ever seen a world quite like her own, and one of the most frequent comments she got was that others would love to see it. So, she'd let them do just that! With no limits to what she could dream up, she could even create dozens of little dream-Toads to fill the space, and gladly did so, turning a gaggle of guards and citizens loose as the red-roofed ivory towers of Castle Toadstool began to emerge from the stretch of bright and freshly-manicured grass she'd created as a base. A stained glass window of her own visage adorned the center of the castle, a gift from her parents when they'd left her in charge of the kingdom. Marble tiles and filigreed wall panels adorned the halls of her palace, with pastel pink floral decorations on as many surfaces as appropriate.

Beyond that, Toad Town began to take shape, with mushroom-shaped buildings and tudor-style houses with brightly-colored roof shingles beginning to crop up along cobblestone paths. All manner of creatures roamed the streets--- more Toads, Koopas, Bob-ombs, even a few friendly Goombas. The crystal gate, with a big gold star encrusted into it, was propped open, allowing direct access from the town into the castle courtyard. The town was ready for visitors! Only one thing left to do.

Anyone with a Constellation pendant shortly thereafter received a message to their inbox from Princess Peach, whether they knew her personally or not, inviting them to a tea party at her castle. With cake! Care to RSVP?

Beatrix @ Peach

[wildfirecatcafe]

It's not every day a literal princess invites you to a tea party. How could Beatrix possibly turn that down?

Easily.

It was a rhetorical question, Jo! Anyway a real tea party with real people is gonna have way more depth than playing with our sister's dolls when we were five did. ... Probably. ... And if not, at least there'll be real cake.

Or dream cake.

Still realer than the plastic toy cake!

And 100% less likely to send us to the hospital. ... oh wait, real food can still do that sometimes. Well, 99% less likely at least.

Do they even have a hospital in this place?

Presumably it's out of commission at the moment like everything else, but I'm sure someone will dream one back up if it's needed.

... this typical mental conversation of tangents upon tangents continued in this vein as Beatrix texted back a quick We'd be absolutely delighted to attend your party and dreamt up... oh, let's go with a pair of roller skates today.

You've tried roller skates before. Are we also dreaming up an improved sense of balance?

Obviously~

And thus they skated off to Peach's patch of dreamspace.

Simon Torquill

[uselessdandy]

While recent events had left Simon feeling even more raw than he had after showing October why he'd done what had to her and that was quite a feat (although, he supposed, that may well have been because he didn't have the need to keep his guards up so much against a vindictive First here), and the message and wiping of the world send hi fleeing back to his Nimbus to bury himself in entirely pointless alchemy practice, the invitation that lights up his pendant makes him smile. Even if it is from a stranger, old instincts from what feels like another man's life make him inclined to trust anyone who's first thought when allowed to remake part of the world to their liking is inviting the land to tea.

Taking more care than he had in decades with dressing himself in one of the finer charcoal gray suits that had materialized in his room in recent weeks, actually bothering with tidying his hair so it didn't look like he had been dragged through a succession of rosebushes, he set out the way the message had indicated, the tension in his chest seeming to grow looser with each step.

When he came in sight of what he could only compare to a pixie colony grown large (although the..creatures? Inhabitants? were like nothing he had seen in Faerie, which was quite a thing in itself), he felt himself breaking into a grin in a way he hadn't in…well, no matter, his delight only growing as he followed the path through the grounds.

"Oh, this is magnificent work," he spoke mostly to himself, but his voice was loud enough that the creator and holder of this place could likely hear if they were near.

Re: Princess Peach || OTA!

[crystalmaster]

Radley comes, of course! He looks around in fascination as he arrives. "Wow, this is quite a place," he greets. "It's beautiful. What are all these animals called?"

Harry Du Bois

[deadmansdisco]

Scared nearly half to death by a charm he hadn't even known was there (or hadn't yet been observant enough to notice), the message was read, loud and clear. Of course, in a dream, there would be an invitation from a princess to a tea party. What sounded about normal, as far as he could tell.

Sure, Harry was still getting his bearings, and could probably stand to figure things out like where he was staying, if he knew anyone here, what exactly brought him here, etc (having been awfully busy, he still hadn't even met the host! Awkward!).

But then again, who could turn down a tea party?

Having straightened himself up as much as possible, he wasted little time hurrying along until the starkly empty landscape gave way to a brightly-colored town, and the equally-colorful castle peering over all of it.

He would've been a liar if he said he wasn't giddy at the opportunity, no matter how bizarre, but he tried to play it as cool as possible as he drew closer, spotting a tall woman in what may have been the pinkest dress he'd ever seen in his entire life. Meeting the royalty right away! He was really moving up in the world.

A short wave, and he hurried over, the grin on his face turning a bit sheepish as he approached.

"Hi! Are you Princess Peach, from the message earlier?" (Did he feel ridiculous asking? Absolutely! But considering there could've been other royal family members, better safe than sorry and all that.)

A hand offered to shake. "Harry! Nice to meet you," A short pause, and the gears visibly turned a notch in his head, before he quickly tacked on, "Your Highness."

Beatrix "Wildfire" Brandt | Open!

[wildfirecatcafe]

Beatrix isn't quite sure how to feel about the cryptic reference to a mishap back in January. On the one hand, she presumably dodged a bullet by showing up immediately after whatever it was. On the other, the knowledge of something like that having happened so recently is actually pretty damn unsettling! ... depending mostly on what even it was.

And then, right as everything went blank, the Outsider mentioned that thing about control over the environment.

"... so, what, the dream's gonna act like a dream now?" Just as a test, she thinks real hard and waves a hand.

A stripe of a grassy field of flowers paints itself through the nothingness where she traces her hand.

She can't help but squee a little bit. "Okay this is really cool actually. I mean I guess I could've already done this in my cloud thing? Man I really need to actually look into the basics of this place cause I still have no idea how any of this works. I gotta talk to the Outsider at some point but it seems like they're busy..."

Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly-

"Okay, okay, I get it, Jo. We've got something to play around with, let's play around with it." But before she tries flight, she does a quick twirl and some more stripes of colorful foliage paint the blankness, roughly marking an area she intends to base herself in, for now.

[itsjustabaddream]

The first thing Neil sees besides a vast, unending expanse of white is a stretch of grass, and a young lady at its edge. With a flick of her wrist, life! Colorful plants bursting from the ground! Neil looks on in delight, failing to realize, as he often does, that his footsteps are incredibly quiet and he's now standing right behind her.

"Did you make this?" His tone is almost giddy.

[woocas]

"Honestly, I still don't know how it all works." Lucas grins as he approaches. Spotting another person in this fresh void is easy enough, if a bit unnerving. "I mean, I still haven't decorated my little cloud yet, but maybe this is a good kick in the pants to do you, ya know?"

And to experiment he considers the splash of color, thinking to add some more in the form of a few balloons!

Caleb Widowgast | Critical Role | ota

[born_in_flame]

Caleb should be confused more than anything coming as he has from a cemetary to an endless white void, but he simply looks around, sighs with the patience of a man used to this kind of nonsense and settles in the middle of his void calmly and quietly.

After a long moment, the tall red haired man pulls a weather beaten book from under his coat and a quill and ink from his pocket and flips to a blank page beginning to draw what looks like a rune or two on it. He is completely focused on his work seemingly content to finish his work in peace, occasionally toying with the soft purple scarf around his neck.

Anyone coming up behind him and looking over his shoulder will see a complicated runic pattern taking shape though they might be slightly confused at the well...dicks in the corners of the page that the man on the floor is drawing around and chuckling about every time he finds one.

[itsjustabaddream]

"Are the penises necessary to the design's functionality, or are they decorative?" Neil has been watching for only a minute now, curiosity piqued by the sigils, and his tone is teasing. It's not his intent to sneak up--- in most dreams, it's next to impossible to startle someone unless they, too, are dreaming lucidly.

[woocas]

Not wanting to sneak up on the man Lucas circles around and leans down once he's in view, giving a small wave at the same time. "Whatcha working on there?"

Guess there's not much to do in an empty void, but he's already been playing around a bit since the Outsider's set them loose on an empty canvas.

Beatrix @ Caleb

[wildfirecatcafe]

There's a blonde swoocing through the air high above.

"... gotta say, flying around through nothingness has been slightly less fun than I was expecting it to be," she mutters.

Yeeeaaahhh this doesn't really work with no frame of reference for how fast or how far. We should build more stuff and try agOH HEY there's a guy down there!

Beatrix looks down to see some guy drawing a thing, so she swooces down - quietly - to take a peek. The runic design is interesting. The dicks are... well, they're clearly amusing to him, and presumably that's what truly matters.

"Whatcha drawing?" she asks.

Neil West {Original Character} | OTA

[itsjustabaddream]

It was a night like any other. Neil wanders the land of his dreams aimlessly, lucid and at ease. There were times when dreaming felt more like home than waking ever did, and there was no better way to unwind from a long day than meandering the endless landscape of the sleeping mind, taking in the ever-shifting scenery.

Without meaning to, however, he stumbles into... something. Someone else's dream? It isn't uncommon for him to dream-hop, whether intentionally or by mistake. But something about this dream seems different. Structured. Referential. It's been too long since he's seen "Labyrinth". It's only forever, not long at all...

Finally, Neil manages to pick the exact right set of stairs and the correct door. What "correct" means for him, he doesn't know, but he's excited to find out, feeling as though he's fallen down the rabbit hole. "Curiouser and curiouser," he mutters aloud, amused. With any luck, he'll meet another hapless wanderer, or maybe a local. Wouldn't that be something.

[capthardness]

Jack's really not liking this whole 'wiping out the landscape to build it from scratch' business, and he's not sure he'd like it anymore if he'd been around for whatever 'mishap' happened a bit back. Not just because the idea of the world being able to be 'rebooted' like this is unnerving in general, but because all this nothing feels like the polarized version of the darkness that waits for him whenever he doesn't dodge out of the way of a punch (or bullet. or javelin. or--) quickly enough.

Still, he's never done well staying cooped up in one place, so instead of pacing around in his nimbus he's...pacing around in the virtual nothing. He could try his hand at building something, he supposes, but he's too worried about what his mind might conjure up.

Luckily for him, just when he's thinking of heading back to his or seeing if John wants to talk (or 'talk'), he hears a voice behind him and turns, grinning when he looks at the person who just stumbled through. "Ya know, I try not to judge by appearances too much, but forgive me if I say you don't look much like an Alice."

[invigorates]

Hapless wanderer? No, not quite. What Neil would see not far in the distance is a tower seemingly forming from nothing, made of stone and dark wood and spiraling high into the nothingness. Around it the ground turned dark, paths of cobbled stone spidering out from the base of the tower, lit by small blue flames in iron lanterns along the edges of the roads, as well as tall, glowing mushrooms that sprouted from the conjured earth. The small town that seemed to be forming looked almost ominous against the backdrop of white nothingness around it.

At the center of it all was a woman, short and, hilariously enough, glowing the same color as the lanterns she was crafting. And all production seemed to stop whenever he approached, her head slowly turning to face him. Unfamiliar - not that that was ever an issue. She smiled.

"Hello."

[woocas]

With the whole landscape being practically wiped clean, Lucas has been spending his time wandering. His little cloud remains as undecorated as before, but the outside being a clean slate makes it strangely more motivating to go out and explore. And create.

With a ridiculously large pencil the size of himself Lucas has taken to drawing the most convoluted stretch of road ever. The hand drawn lines explode outwards, like water hitting paint, filling in the gaps of his artistic ability with imagination unleashed.

"Hey there!" Lucas says cheerily, as he notices someone approaching his tangle of asphalt.

Joseph Rambeau | Stardew Valley {Farmer Protagonist OC}

[pride_of_pelicantown]

''Just Passing Through''

...okay. This didn't look anything like the mines.

One minute he'd been trying to fend off a swarm of those horrific bugs that stung relentlessly, and the next--well, there was nothing before he opened his eyes and he was sprawled out on a smooth, but strangely not too cold floor of pink marble tile.

Once he gets to his feet, it takes Joseph a second to get his bearings. The staircases--they make his head spin a little with their seemingly impossible construction, not unlike the strange woodland brew the wizard in Cindersnap Forest had him drink. He finally has to shut his eyes until his head calms, then take it in stages to make it to one of the staircases. If he just puts one foot in front of the other, it's safe enough. He doesn't get dizzy again, and gradually his foot finds a landing.

When he lifts his gaze from his feet, there's...nothing. No, literally, there's nothing, he's floating in a blank white void with no sense of direction...

...no, no wait. After a few fumbling steps he stays still, realizing that, once his eyes adjust, there's a--a floor. It's subtle, but there's a difference in shade or texture (???) between the ground (the floor?) and the sky (ceiling???...) that keeps him from getting too disoriented.

The problem is that he's alone. Alone in this barely sensical liminal space--and while he's growing to enjoy the solitude of the farm he's slowly shaping into something that Grandpa can be proud of--something safe from the bats and the slimes and the strange, dried out husk creatures that seem to spring from pure shadow and earth--this isn't that. There's no sound from the owls in the trees or the crickets in the nearby forest borders, no rustle of Timer--the cat Marnie brought to his door--pouncing on some invisible threat in the tall grass, no flickering light show from the fireflies that dot the sweet spring nights.

Joseph Rambeau is, well and truly, alone in this place, and it's kind of terrifying. So, with no other option, he calls out.

"Hello? Is anyone there?...Can anyone hear me?..."

[chickenboy]

Shane isn't far away when he hears the voice echo. He's admiring the ridiculousness of the floating tree just sitting in the middle of literally nowhere, and contemplating making something of his own. The girl in pink had made a whole freakin' castle, and the one newbie with the blonde hair looked like maybe they were gonna try to fly? Why couldn't he make something too, then? He could easily make a Stardrop Saloon replica and drink himself stupid with no limits... or maybe humor his secret desire for a small house of his own in the woods, with a small clearing and a coop for chickens and maybe a cow or horse or dog---

Then, he heard a voice echo out into the great white abyss, and came around from behind the tree.

Oh for Yoba's sake, of all the people it could be, it had to be that stupid hot farmer boy who kept giving him daffodils at the bar.

"Uh--- hey---" He managed. "Joseph, right?"

Re: Joseph Rambeau | Stardew Valley {Farmer Protagonist OC}

[wildfirecatcafe]

After eventually getting bored painting the world with random things, Beatrix has decided to take some time wandering around looking for other people. Shouldn't be hard, right? There's nothing to block them from sight, after all! If her eyesight was better she could theoretically just see everyone from where she was standing... but it's not, so she has to actively wander.

... And there we go, it's some guy calling out into the void. "Hey! I hear ya!" she says, approaching the guy.

Kim Kitsuragi | Disco Elysium [OTA!]

[sunsetparabellum]

Lieutenant Kitsuragi didn't typically remember his dreams.

Whether it was due to the fact that they were often stressful, full of graphic imagery from his history with sordid crimes, or because he simply did not sleep deeply enough to dream deeply either, the moment he woke, he lost most memory of them, left to lie there with whatever mental state was left behind. He had tried dream journaling once or twice, since writing things down was his usual way of processing things, but to no avail.

So when he wandered into the Dreamscape, purely unintentionally, he was coming out of a stressful dream of his own about a case and incredibly hazy, visibly confused as he wandered into a strange void with bits of color and shape on the horizon but well out of reach. His dark eyes darted over the landscape, trying to find anything familiar or even tangible, freezing up as his mind tried and failed to adjust. However, he had trained himself well to avoid the mortifying ordeal of vulnerability, and refrained from calling out for help despite his thinly veiled distress at what he was seeing.

To someone without all this internal monologue, however, it would appear that a man in a bright orange jacket was standing extremely stiffly, staring out at the void, with a look of discomfort on his face as he adamantly refused to seek assistance.

Someone to talk to would probably be helpful.

Amnesiac Detective Turns into a Golden Retriever Who's Person Just Got Home (REAL) (NOT CLICKBAIT)

[deadmansdisco]

Someone one helpful was questionable, but there was no denying that who stumbled upon him in the blank landscape was someone excited.

Harry had spent the better part of the outage doing what he did best: ambling around, looking confused, and talking to any single person that he could find for any length of time they'd be willing to talk to him. Eventually, there came to be long, contemplative strolls through nothing at all, his mind wandering between this or that as the strange quiet held in the void.

And then, of course, there was that unmistakable orange jacket.

It was fortunate that Kim was turned away from him, because the stupid grin that spread across his face may have been embarrassing otherwise, but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

A familiar face! At last, this dream finally had everything.

Trotting over, Harry cupped his hands around his mouth, calling over. He wasn't exactly fast, but his pace was determined to clear the distance across them, and the delight was immediately obvious in his tone.

"Kim! Lieutenant! What are you doing here?"

John Rambo | OTA (CW/TW: PTSD flashbacks, police brutality, abusive behavior)

[theydrewfirstblood]

HAVE YOU TRIED TURNING IT OFF AND BACK ON AGAIN?

John didn't like the blank slate. The endless nothing was disturbing, unsettling...the endless potential that was there didn't mean good things to him.

Sure, good things could happen--but good things never did.

So he's heading straight back for his Nimbus. He looks, along the way, for friendly faces--maybe Jack or Pearl, Lioriley or Radley. Someone he can join, or invite to join him until this...whatever it is...passes and he's back on solid ground again.

John, however, is worried. He's afraid...he's trying very hard not to remember. That last conversation with Jack, however, it's so recent in his memory...

...so when John takes a step and instead of the strange muted noise of his foot hitting...nothing, his foot crunches on dirt and gravel, the sharp bite of a cold Washington morning stinging his cheeks? He can't say he's totally surprised.

{OOC: Hello, welcome to Rambo's nightmare! :P John has accidentally created a slice of hell for himself in the Dreamscape. Feel free to pick the place where you want to find John trapped, or perhaps have YOUR muse experience John's nightmare! The choice is yours.}

1. It's A Long Road When You're On Your Own

John starts walking once he recognizes the stretch of road he's on. He knows he shouldn't, that he should turn and just run as fast as he can, but...it's like he can't.

Not when he knows what happens. How can he escape it when it's history?

He walks until the town is visible, sleepy little Hope, Washington. It doesn't look like anything much, anything dangerous...it doesn't look anything like the prison camps in 'Nam.

But when the police cruiser pulls up, with the familiar face of Teasle in the front seat, John knows what's coming. He knows that beyond that cruiser, something worse than 'Nam waits for him because it's here, and not there.

"Morning! You visiting someone here?..."

John doesn't answer. He can't. He knows what happens if he does.

He wants to run. He wants to stay silent...he doesn't want to get in that car.

But he's not sure he has a choice.

2. And It Hurts When They Tear Your Dreams Apart

The tiny basement of the Hope Sheriff's Station is dim and disorganized. It's full of deputies and employees going about their business, unaware they aren't real--unaware this is just a dream.

Maybe you've followed John Rambo in here--or maybe, perhaps, a brawny sheriff caught you and hauled you in for vagrancy.

Regardless, you're here, as witness or victim, while a perp is being fingerprinted. Unwilling, tense, impossible to overpower--left with ink smudged on fingers that feel wrong with this stuff on them.

Maybe you, maybe John, reach for a napkin on the counter to wipe the ink off smudged fingers, only to have a deputy grab with rough, uncaring fingers to stop it.

"Leave the ink on!...He won't let us fingerprint him, sir..."

3. When They Draw First Blood, That's Just The Start Of It

John is at the bottom of a familiar ravine, shivering under a piece of half rotten burlap draped over his shoulders and cinched around his waist. The blood on his hands is still hot from where it dripped off the dead deputy's head and onto his fists.

He fell out of the chopper. It was an accident. This one, this time, John didn't do anything. He can stop this--he could have stopped this, if they would have let him.

"One man is dead! It's not my fault! I don't want any more hurt!"

"Stop!"

"Stay there and give yourself up!"

"But I didn't do anything!"

There's still a way out, even with casualties. John just wants a way out, even if they take him into custody again--if they just treat him fairly and stop pushing...

A shot rings out. The flare of agony John remembers explodes through his head as the bullet sears the skin near his temple, a flesh wound from so far a distance.

He tried. He tried, but they just. Kept. Pushing.

They drew first blood, not him. He tried.

They drew first blood...

Yeah can I get uhhhh a number 2 please, no pickles

[sunsetparabellum]

Kim was pretty hazy about getting into the Dreamscape to begin with, just kind of floating in from his own dream and struggling with this strange new reality, so when his brain found an opportunity to insert him into a reality he would understand, it did so.

A police precinct. Not the RCM, but similar enough, with the familiar scene of a detainee resisting arrest. The deputy speaks to him, calling him sir, and it clicks that these officers are his juniors, looking to him for a solution. Right. Work. That's easy.

"Everyone calm down," he said sternly, his voice cool but firm. His accent was Revacholian in his own waking world, though to someone from another world, it would almost certainly sound French. "There is no need for inappropriate displays of force. Secure the area. I will speak with the suspect."

The officers begrudgingly relinquished their hold of John, guarding the doors instead. They didn't look happy about it, but they weren't about to risk their jobs by ignoring their direct superior. Kim sat across the table from John. His gaze was intense, but not unkind. "Your name, please."

Barney Ross || OTA Unless Otherwise Noted

[draculaslifecoach]

{Closed to Lydia Martin; CW: EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE AND GORE IN CLIP AND PROMPT}

Barney doesn't know what to make of this shit. The whole...reboot. Least that's what it seems like, with the blank white space and a rough time figuring out which fucking way is up. It's bullshit, and all he wants is to find his fucking Nimbus and ride this shit out...

...but while he's trying to light a cigar, the bright white space dissolves and he's trapped in the dark.

It takes a second--it feels so far away now that it almost seems like another life. Still, the particular press of shadow, the smell of damp stone and earth...the voices he can hear in the distance...

Bonelessly, the cigar slips from his fingers. Without thinking, his hand goes to his belt. The knife that's always there, that hasn't been there in months, fits easily into his fingers.

It's just like breathing. The cold, white noise in his head, the calm, the focus--the icy rage curdling in the middle of his chest.

He hears the soldiers' voices. He waits for the scream--but it doesn't come. It's another voice he hears echoing off the stone, breathy and urgent and strong but afraid.

The ice melts, and the world turns red.

There's no stealth this time as he bursts through the door--just the dull wooden thud of the door slamming open, the meaty squelch of a blade slicing through flesh, and the wet spurts of blood as Barney drives his blade into the throats of phantoms springing from his own mind.

The world is red. The blood is red...the hair, gleaming in muted light, is red not black this time, and instead of the screams and wet sounds of death all Barney can hear is Tool's voice cracking as he confesses sins that hit Barney way too close to home.

A PROMISE NOT KEPT IS THE ROAD TO EXILE

The darkness shifts, and Barney's back at Tool's place. Definitely more like a dream than anything he's been through since he got here, staring at figments of his imagination in the mirror, being drawn back to another time...

"...you remember that time we was up in Bosnia? When we took down those Serb bad boys?..."

Barney can only nod, can only hear the story again...can only stand, helpless in the dark, and wonder how he could have ever gotten to that place where he needed to hear that story, to remember that hell. With people like Ann in his life here, friends like Lydia and the lady Bishop...

He can only feel shame for the thing he almost became.

I AM SINNER, HOLD MY PRAYERS UP TO THE SUN... (cw: thoughts of self loathing, self harm-adjadcent thoughts)

The darkness shifts, and Barney's in the same place, but a different time. Another night, before it all went to hell...before he had to question.

He's pacing back and forth, until he stops, until he looks down at himself and remembers the night. After the Somali pirates, before the meeting with Church. When he threw on a loose flannel and rode down to Tool's place, the unfinished ink on his back burning his skin. Letting Gunner go, barely getting off that fucking ship with the hostages and the cash...

Expendable. He waited for Tool, restless and ready to finish it, because he needed that word. That reminder that it was fleeting--all of it. Life, his life, his usefulness...it was all for sale, and it was all just so fucking fleeting.

Expendable. A badge of honor to the crew, an inevitability for Barney. Because nothing else mattered, because he didn't matter. Back then, he'd been comfortable with that thought.

Now, stuck in this memory of that time--which seems so far away now--all he wants to do is run.

tw: violence and implied threats

[wantadistraction]

"This isn't real, this isn't real..."

Lydia felt like she couldn't breathe as she chanted the words over and over, attempting to use them to make herself believe and to shield herself from the two men who stood on either side of her, taunting her with threats and laughing at her fear.

She knows this isn't her memory or whatever it is but she can't deny that she can feel the death around her. It feels like a heavy wool cloak that fogs her senses and makes her as blind as the blindfold wrapped around her head. It isn't her death she is sensing though but it's there, whispering all around her. Just like that night at the hotel so long enough.

The men are saying terrible things though and one is stepping closer, saying something about burning her as she feels a single point of heat near her cheek...and then she smells blood. The sounds that follow are as horrible as the smell of blood that hits her. Their laughter and taunting become surprised cries of pain followed by gurgling as they drop around her, her whole body jerking and stiffening in response.

She doesn't scream though. She merely bites down on her bottom lip, trying to sink down in on herself even as she yanks at the bindings keeping her hands together.

The Doctor | Doctor Who | OTA

[borntolove]

Have You Tried Turning it Off and Back On Again?

The Doctor can't help but feel partly responsible for what is happening to this Pocket Universe and with The Outsider, now, gone, well - someone has to watch the DreamScape, right?

He can't, however, stand the lack of anything, too many times seeing dead barren planets because of the Time War and time, literally eating that world away.

He does wonder, he wonders if he could start re-building and he tries and sees that ability, those 'physics' still exist and goes to start re-building, things as he once saw them. Reminding himself not to abuse this ability.

Somewhere, along the lines, however, in the re-building of the Dreamscape, he finds himself re-creating Gallifrey.

The purple snow-capped mountains, with the meadows of tall red grass. The silver-leaved tree forests on top of those mountains.

He stands there completely stunned but in the best way possible, with near-happy tears in his eyes at what he's seeing.

"No, this can't be real."

Even if his hearts want this to be and want it to pretend to be real.

"But it is beautiful, isn't it? Just needs the orange sky with the two suns."

For John Rambo CW: for PTSD

[borntolove]

The Doctor stands in blankness. The nothing-ness. And he begins to have flashbacks of the Time War. How The Time Lords and the Daleks could time travel and they'd battle on a planet that wasn't their own and if one side won, the other side would time travel and win the fight, instead. And this cycle would continue. And as it did... the time winds would slowly eat the planet. Till there was nothing left. Sometimes the planet was completely wiped from the timeline.

"Hold it together, Doctor. It's going to be alright." But he's clearly trying to not panic.

Allison Argent | TEEN WOLF CRAU!AU (CRAU + Mirrorverse) | OTA

[proto_alpha]

CW: ALLUSIONS TO TORTURE & ABUSE (physical assault, involuntary disordered eating, & psychological abuse)

Allison doesn't remember going to sleep--she never remembers, because she doesn't sleep well.

The wardens won't let her. Not for the last three years.

It's been that long since the collision with the other Barge--the one that seeks to redeem its inmates rather than corrupting them. She fought so hard for so long to stay the course, to cling to he growing power, and when it all ended and she ended up back in her version of reality, it paid off.

The power she lost as an inmate was that of an Alpha now. She held onto that tight--not because she wanted power, but because it meant she had something to fight for.

Her pack. Here, there, everywhere.

When the wardens try to goad her into a fight, she clings to it. When they try to keep her from a meal in hopes the wolf will take over, she clings to it. When they hurt innocent people hoping to drive her to blind animal fury, she clings to it.

True Alpha.

It's there in her mind when she finds herself standing in an empty void, unsure of how she got there. She's an unusual sight, the pale and underweight young woman in cutoffs and a loose tank top with bare feet and hair hanging free and just a little wild in her eyes. There are old bruises on some of the bare skin that's exposed, brown and yellow and ancient--not many, but stark against her pale complexion. Her newest injury is a split lip, scabbed over but still angry looking.

As she stands there, the picture of a frightened animal trying not to draw attention to herself as she looks around, however, anyone who spots these injuries will also spot them vanishing--and the coal red glow of wide, apprehensive eyes surveying the liminal space around her.

Re: Allison Argent | TEEN WOLF CRAU!AU (CRAU + Mirrorverse) | OTA

[crystalmaster]

Radley is surprised to find himself discovering this dream-nightmare. Seeing the girl, he goes over in apprehensive concern. "Hey, are you okay?" He stops before getting too close when he sees the fear in her eyes.