idream_ofmemes | TDM #6 - Planned Outage

TDM #6 - Planned Outage

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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?"

At the sound of his name, Kim snapped out of his unpleasant trance to see none other than his partner from the 41st Precinct. "Detective?" He blinked a few times. "I--- I don't know." With a sheepish pause, he cast Harry a sidelong glance.

[Empathy (Success): He supposes he knows how Harry feels now.]

"What are you doing here? What is this place?"

"Well, it's..."

There's a clear pause. Harry hems and haws about it for a moment, struggling with vague gestures as the gears fruitlessly turned. Try as he might, he had only a vague explanation from a pretty stranger. He hasn't even met the person in charge of this whole ordeal.

No dice! Sorry, Kim.

"Some sort of dreamworld, where a bunch of people who are in worlds that are just different enough from ours got together and made some sort of weird little community," He elaborated, only half-right about any of it. "But the guy in charge turned it off, last I heard. So now it's nothing."

Nailed it.

"I'm not even sure if any of this is real, though, honestly. I mean, there's a relatively solid chance that my lizard-brain is just wadding things together and throwing them at me," He mused, thoughtful and calm, despite the strange lack of grounding in his words. "But I'm just rolling with it for now and seeing where it's going with it!"

Well, that's an expectedly Harry DuBois explanation for what's going on.

"So... This is a dream," he repeated slowly. "But it's also... nothing."

"Yes. Exactly."

Harry gave a slow, sage nod, folding his arms across his chest.

"Nothing, but also anything, anytime, anywhere. But mostly nothing."

What in the world is he talking about?

"Alright," Kim agreed unceremoniously. At least he was with Harry now. He may not understand what's happening any better, but having him here feels... solid. Somehow. Like an anchor. "So, what do we do?"

"No clue!"

That wasn't unusual for Harry, but he didn't seem quite so troubled by it, this time around.

"From what I know, since the whole thing's shut down right now, everybody's making their own thing. So you either do that, or walk around until you find someone else's something, and see what's going on with that. But I don't think there's anything specific to do right now."

"I see," he muttered, thinking that over. "...Is that what you've been doing?"

A moment of quiet thought, before he cracked a grin.

"Yeah, pretty much!"

Kim breathed out a short laugh. Harry was nothing if not unabashedly himself.

"Well, lead the way then."

Looking pleased with that, Harry turned, leading them along.

It was an easy habit to fall into, and one he was more than delighted to have back. It was strange, to only work with someone for a short while, to have their presence start to feel natural, perfectly routine. The return of Kim let his mind wander, not perched on a stressed edge of his seat, trying to navigate this strange place in a bizarre free fall.

His mind wandered back to Martinaise, of course - it was easy to think about work, with your coworker in tow. There was some musing, though.

[Conceptualization (Success): With a little love, anything can be bettered, can't it?]

Martinaise hadn't always been torn apart, and, hopefully, wouldn't be.

This trail of thought bloomed beneath them as Harry briefly got lost in thought. Mended pavement sprawled beneath them, fences were lovingly mended, worn-out homes were repaired, but left with their cozy charms. A certain commercial district looked distinctly less cursed, and the harbor was visited by more ships, bobbing lazily in the waves that knocked against the patched cement along the sea-walls.

The statue that towered over the round-about in the middle of the town was strangely warped, as if he couldn't decide what it would look like, the horse remaining, but the former ruler atop of it looking strange and almost motion-blurred, despite sitting still.

Just ahead of it, though, neon lights proudly lit and windows repaired, stood the Whirling-in-Rags, gardens along the windows lovingly tended, and small, iron patio tables dotting along the outside, no longer scattered haphazardly about. Even from outside, one could see that the inside was well-repaired, looking as though it bustled with warm sunlight and life.

It was only when Harry nearly stumbled into a stone fence did he stop, pausing for a moment, before looking around, brows furrowed.

He looked back to Kim, opening his mouth to speak once, closing it, and opening it again. His words failed him, but he looked thoroughly perplexed, and distinctly caught off guard, despite the bright and lively sights that now sprawled around the two of them under the soft morning light.

Kim's pace slowed as the world took shape around them. Martinaise, but not. A Martinaise that did not exist and yet felt real all the same. A place that felt... loved. As if some god or angel or well-meaning fool descended from the heavens with infinite resources and gave this place exactly what it needed, and suddenly the dirty and miserable harbor town was safe and beautiful. And no one had to sell out to Evrart Claire to make it happen.

"Did you--- Is this your doing, detective?"

Harry took a look around, seeming to process for a moment, before he looked back Kim's way. He couldn't help a huff of a laugh, still looking thoroughly bewildered, but there was an edge of excitement to it, this time.

"I... didn't mean to," He replied, scratching his chin. "I was just letting my mind wander, thought about Martinaise not always looking like it did, then what it might look like if it got cleaned up, and... well. Here it is!"

Kim couldn't help but smile a little at that. "That it is," he agreed. "...Sometimes I can't help but think, if we did a better job protecting Martinaise, it could actually be like this. But maybe that is idealistic. It's nice to imagine, though."

Enter the least social man on the planet...or at least in all of Granite City, which seemed to be worlds away from--whatever this was.

That was the exceedingly shitty thing about a conscience, however: once it woke up, it was hell on earth trying to get it to go the fuck back to sleep.

No wonder his brother got sucked into this shit...

Gritting his teeth as he continued to stand there, about three feet behind the inert man in orange, equally inert as he fought the urge to help, Joe Smith finally gave in to that nagging voice in his head that sounded too goddamn much like Sam and finally shuffled forward, making sure his footfall was audible.

"Horror vacui." he declared, deep, gravelly voice possibly a little startling in the otherwise relative silence. "You ever heard of it?"

Regardless of the man's demeanor, there was something grounding about the sound of another human's voice. He stood a little straighter and cleared his throat. There was a pause while he briefly processed the question. "A discomfort with emptiness," he replied, his own voice soft and even. "I don't know if it's so much that... I don't know how I got here. I was somewhere else."

"It's more accurate to say 'nature abhors a vacuum,' but you ain't wrong." Joe replied gruffly as he came closer, standing alongside the other man. "S' attributed to Aristotle, but the thought behind it's more in line with the philosophy of Plato--in the abstract, a vacuum is a void. A void is nothing, which functionally can't exist, so...what you're seeing? There's somethin' there. Just...keep lookin'. Focus."

Joe makes an example of himself, staring into the middle distance, letting his eyes find that horizon he'd finally tapped into--the subtle shading and texture that delineated sky ground from sky, up from down in the absence of said sky.

"Figurin' out where you are? Starts with finding direction. Least that's how I've always done it."

Kim is, to his chagrin, a bit overwhelmed when the man suddenly starts waxing philosophical in great detail, and some of the words escape him. Names of men who must have been influential somewhere, to someone, but to Kim, they were just more impossibilities.

Even so, he followed the man's gaze to the horizon, and realized there was, indeed, a horizon. A subtle line where "floor" meets "ceiling" and they become distinct. Suddenly, there was a perceivable up and down, left and right. It still didn't fix the fact that Kim had no idea how he could possibly be here to begin with, but... it did help him feel less like being sick. So he was grateful.

"That--- does make it a bit less disorienting, yes. Thank you." His eyes didn't waver from the distance. "What is this place?"

Beatrix drifts idly through the mostly-blank dreamscape, just out of boredom. Playing around with the cloud parkour course was fun, but she wants to do something else at the moment.

... She hadn't been planning to run into some guy standing around like a statue, but there the guy was.

"Hey, you alive?"

Snapping out of his daze, Kim looked over to the source of the voice, seeing a blonde girl he didn't recognize just. Standing there. On the nothing.

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

Beatrix blinks a few times. "... well, all right, given the circumstances that's fair. But you're interacting with the rest of the world, so that's alive as far as I'm concerned."

Hey Sasha, quick question, how do we know we're not dead and in an afterlife right now?

Do I look like an angel? I don't know any more than you. Try the Outsider.

"Who are you?" His voice was calm and even, with what would sound to Beatrix like a French accent, wavering only slightly with nerves. His tone wasn't accusatory, just confused. "What is this place?"

"My name's Beatrix," Beatrix says, "and this place is... a dreamscape thing? I keep meaning to go talk to the Outsider and ask for details but then just forgetting to actually do that. Anyway right now it's down for maintenance, so instead of all the funky places people built we've got a big void." She waves her hand and a tree sprouts from the void. "A big malleable void, though. You can do basically whatever you want with it right now."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM #6 - Planned Outage

Kim Kitsuragi | Disco Elysium [OTA!]

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

Good boy >:3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Kim Kitsuragi | Disco Elysium [OTA!]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject