Monthly Plotting Post | January

[pumpkinhollow]

Monthly Plotting Post | January

Happy New Year, everybody!! First off, I'd like to apologize for never getting up a plotting post in December. I'm still getting used to my new job and the holidays + financial stuff were absolutely kicking my butt. As a result, I wanted to get the plotting post up and running as early as possible! We've done some shuffling around of the order of events, but I think you'll like what we have in store!

TDM

All Month

Give it up for our first reprint of TDM #9!

In an effort to make the TDM for the next two months slightly less festive, I'm considering giving the event a Valentine's twist, such as morphing the gingerbread curse to chocolate and adjusting the Winter Market somewhat. If anyone has any thoughts on some tweaks that can be made to make a romance-y vibe, I'd love to hear them! The new TDM will launch next week.

LOST IN DREAMLAND

Main Event - January 17th

Content Warnings:
unreality, varied nightmare content

In lieu of the originally-planned Efrain-takedown, we've decided to delay the death of the Prince of Sorrow's Song in order to give him a bit more screen-time, and instead we'll be offsetting all the Dahlia-centric events by giving our good friend Neil a turn to shine! While the specifics of the event are still taking shape and likely won't be set in stone until closer to, we have the basic skeleton and will be using people's plotting ideas to help add to the structure.

The idea is this: one night during sleep, the entire island will be trapped in a nightmare dimension--- one that has a physical structure. A constantly shifting structure comprised of the fears and traumas that plague its inhabitants, but a structure nonetheless. The vast majority will be a landscape of horrors that amalgamate from the nightmare of player characters, allowing for the potential for a bit of memshare and a bit a lot of creative freedom to get weird with it. The center will be an oasis of beautiful dreams designed to trap dreamers in a lotus-eater type haven. And the exits will be around the edges. It will only be by travelling through the nightmares.

Traverse your fears together! Learn more about each other's nightmares! Get an escort from the island's local dreamwalker, or wander into Mortanne's domain --- the beyond. Fall into a euphoric time sink at the nucleus of the dream or try to rescue your friends from their sinister bliss. There's plenty to do!

CURRENT METAPLOT

Some handwaving of progress is currently being planned for CitrusQuest to expedite the resolution, so stay tuned for how the gang reaches the crack in the world!

Starting next month, Efrain will be starting to stir things up in the lead-up to his downfall! We'll be seeing him and his minions show up to kill the vibe at Merrymeet. In order for me to not die of perpetual 15 threads in the demon inbox disease, I will need to seriously manage my thread load for Efrain and maybe try to sneak in some unrelated Efrain threads during January, as I got a little obliterated during casino time. And lastly, the herbs granted by Mortanne to Leon Kennedy have now been cultivated enough to harvest in Paradesium! Enjoy some dubious unnamed herbs! When you eat them... something happens! (It's a good something.)

(CODE)

Comments

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

[pumpkinhollow]

[lovethyneighb_or]

can characters also get bodily shapeshifted by their nightmare (as long as they turn back when they get out) or is it just the landscape :3?

[saltwaterlungs]

What's the deal with mortality in the dreamscape- is it a die in dream = die in real life situation or can we repeatedly put our kids through the pear wiggler with killing them?

[cacophonish]

The last time Spiral Jeff was in a dream plot like this, his nature allowed him to experience it as a sort of lucid dreaming state, where he could still be affected or harmed by things, but was able to also exert some influence over others' dream manifestations - would that be allowed or nah?

Siebren, the Baron of Blank

[spaghettification]

While Siebren doesn't have the same experience with dreams as Neil or the same control of the Beyond as Mortanne, his presence in the dreamscape will be something akin to a gravity well. This is when he comes to truly mantle the power of the Baron of Blank, and he will wield this same power to aid those around him, especially those whose patron demon he is.

For in this dreamscape, he truly will be the demon he's becoming. Love him or fear him, this event is going to shed a new light on Siebren.

Who's game to play off this?

[blindwatchersees]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

guildenstern - mulcahy, phil

[lovethyneighb_or]

I don't want to spoil the entire scope of my dreamshare nightmare plans, but:


Mulcahy: (CWs for: body horror, gore, violence, war, probably more along the way)
... is going full-send into his very true statement of "I dream of vengeance more than mercy." He is going to be the abomination he sees himself as, expressing the hatred he can't speak anywhere else. His nightmare is his dream is that he allows himself to express being hateful and angry and violent, and that he needs it, which is true. His nightmare is his dream that he becomes a whole person. Mulcahy will eventually escape via the Necropolis.

Phil: (CWs for: explicit writing of suicide and body horror)
... is getting what is either a continuation or the natural endpoint of his seemingly endless train of suicide nightmares. We're gonna be on some Skinamarink (2022) slash Anatomy (2016) slash House of Leaves (2000) type shit. Loosely (because I likely won't be able to do any of these works justice) but also definitely inspired, at least in vibes. Once he falls into his corner, he likely won't be able to leave; others may or may not be able to escape as well. The House has no doors or windows, and the House will Continue. Phil will die. Not sure how or in what fashion and in all likelihood, this ending will only be able to be threaded with one or two people, but Phil will die.

I promise I like subtle dreams and writing too, they just both ended up with insane baroque shit because it worked, lmao. I mean, there will ideally be more/different nightmare scenes with them too. Both of these require buildup and I want to touch on more things than just these big capstones, and I'd like the variety. I just find it harder to/take more time with coming up with the funky fresh stuff.

potential dream scenes (do not reply):

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy:

good dream ideas:

- genuinely, hanging out at the M*A*S*H. Quiet nights in the Officer’s Club, reading in his tent while jeeps go by. he misses his friends and he was violently ripped from them, even if the war drove him and everyone half mad and scarred him for good. they’re his last memories of Earth.
- in his garden in ph :-)
- talking theology shop with one or two vague figures (that perhaps look suspiciously like darcy and zivia) for endless dream hours
- playing poker with hawk :-) and more of the 4077th, but also with some ph vets at the table
- chilling in a quiet snow field (mortanne didn’t do that, he just likes it that much now)
- overall, well fed and hale and can eat without worry :(

nightmare ideas:

- memories to pick from include: everything about M*A*S*H and the war; shelling, Christ as a dead soldier, being in OR with guns pointed at him, etc etc
- For sure something to do with loneliness and isolation from the world, from even the people who like him very much, from God
- Hiding in his sister’s room or under the bed from his brothers
- Literally just trying to go about his day while the floor and everything and all is covered in bodies and gore, many of people he know, which is a scene he used to wake up to a lot in his Sail CRAU
- everything about being tortured in the Village, especially the medical abuse (including solitary confinement, drugged food, restraints, sedation, forced hallucinations, self-inflicted starvation, & being forcefully lobotomized and abusive shock treatment, even if the last 2 were mostly undone from the death reset)
- Fear of 2 showing up in PH
- getting kidnapped, home invasion
- Violent domestic abuse situation but both of them are him; expression of both his fear of being his parents as well as how he talks to himself

Phil

good dream ideas:

- domestic like you wouldnt BELIEEVEEEE. With Darcy as his kid specifically. in a setting that is mashed up between PH/Punxsutawney/Pittsburgh/Cleveland with all of his friends, many of whom are people he does not have contact with anymore, and probably his missing family, and his late-ish wife Rita
- a lot, lot of dreams that are spins on him being in a situation where Darcy is his kid (aus, basically)
- being back in the Channel 5 station but his CRAU friends are also around, either in neighboring departments or somewhere in the city or in his phone contacts

nightmare ideas:

- Time loop shit (the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is)
- Trying to win an unwinnable gambling game to keep Darcy safe and his loved ones alive/close to him against Luck, Death, and Fate (and possibly the bosses from his CRAU; Cordis, the Captain, and Celestine)
- The December trial, with Darcy beheaded and Skulduggery
- The Village also and being trapped in a bed with his wings amputated
- to that end & his accidental themes of bodily violation, Something Under His Skin Something Under His Skin
- returning to Earth but he can’t fit into his old life anymore, due to bird bits or has changed too much and no one likes him anymore or understands him even a little or all of the above

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy (cw for child-abuse-themed horror and gore):

I am looking for Darts' dreams to be at least partially responsive to whoever's coming to see her. The good dreams will be varied, various little picaresques of safety and comfort, mostly in either domestic settings or fantastical dreams of freedom.
Her nightmares will be similar, but I have a couple of ideas that I would like to offer up to people.

The first is the big dramatic flashy "kid Darcy is suffocating under a pile of corpses and you need to dig her out", and the second is "Darcy is laying in the lap of someone featureless who is stroking her hair and has a knife to her throat. If she flinches or tries to move, her throat will be slit". The first is obviously more simple and will definitely involve comforting kid Darcy, the latter will be more tense and subdued and will require a careful approach to not have Darce fuckin' beef it. I do plan on Darcy making it into the Beyond as her way out because. Y'know. Gestures at her. But! I am open for anything! Hit me up! Hit me down! Hit me sideways!

Hawkeye (cw for discussion of war, ecological destruction, general MASH warnings):

Hawk's pleasant dreams are mostly going to be of his childhood and of Crabapple Cove more generally! Which sets up his main stage for his nightmares; that he returns home and finds they've made Crabapple Cove into a MASH unit, devastated the local ecology, and have made his father work the same shifts as he did back in the war. I am open to variations on this or any ideas around it, please throw them at me.

As always you can hit me up here or on discord for plotting.

[not_the_last]

What would you say to the idea of Edgar helping out Kid Darcy?

(tbh I'd love to do Literally Anything with any of mine and either Darcy or Hawkeye, but that's the first one to come to mind)

Phoenix | Nimona, Gaeta, Radar

[not_a_traitor]

Radar
Oh, yeah, he's definitely going to need rescuing from the oasis. Ever wanted to see Ottumwa and meet the extended O'Reilly family? Come say hi, and then try to drag him away from Sunday dinner! Part of the escape outward will involve swimming through the Sea of Japan. I'm sure it'll be fine. (Okay, more seriously, there will be a lot of war-related stuff in his nightmares and even more specifically related to Colonel Blake, if that's not your thing.)

Gaeta
Gaeta won't be caught in the oasis, so he can be recruited to rescue people early on, but his chunk of the nightmare realm will be gnarly. It may include elements of nuclear annihilation, a fair number of dead bodies, multiple distinct moments where figures from his past will try to trick him and anybody he's trying to rescue into straying off the path, and end with a ride in Raptor 718 (which involved being stranded in space on a ship with failing life support, murder, some intense gaslighting, and a failed suicide attempt). I can absolutely adjust things, tone it down, pick and choose what happens, etc etc, so it's not just a relentless march of awfulness -- though as a note for established CR, this might be the only time he offers a glimpse of what happened on the Raptor, if that's something you want your character to witness.

Nimona
Nimona can also be recruited as a rescuer! If so, your trip to freedom will include getting chased by an angry mob and crossing paths with Gloreth, the first monster-hunting knight of the Kingdom and former childhood friend of Nimona's. This one'll probably have some body horror CWs on it too as we get weird with the shapeshifting.

With all three of them, I would love to play with their nightmares reacting to, and/or blending with, the nightmares of whoever they run across. Think there could be some interesting places your crew's nightmares intersect with mine? Let's Make It Worse, Together.

[not_the_last]

Have you ever known me to turn down Let's Make It Worse? I'd particularly love to have Edgar meet Radar's family, but literally any of this Yes Please.

[medekh]

Artemy canonically has some pretty fun dreams to play around with. A lot of what Artemy's dreamscape is going to be is a mess of the town he's from in a configuration that makes no sense. Sprawls of the Steppe that seem to go on forever where your stomach aches of hunger and your nose burns with scenes that you can't seem to place but then suddenly, in dream logic, you're trapped inside a house with doors upon doors that seem to lead nowhere in particular. Inside these houses there are beds everywhere, with the dying and the dead. The plague is never far behind. You'll likely be able to run into these motherfuckers. It'll be a great time.


Jimmy does not have the canon dreams that Artemy has but he does have the nightmare fuel of his canon itself to provide shit. His nightmares are just a starry black void of nothingness. Walking around, you will absolutely see some shit that you don't want to. Perhaps too many bottles of mouthwash. Perhaps a small television set which encourages you to commit unspeakable acts. Visages of body horror and gore can be found as well, if you're into that kinda thing. A talking Polle will absolutely be there. He's just a motion censored mascot though. Don't worry! (Or is he...?)

general non-event plotting

[cacophonish]

I'm waiting before I make any plans for the event, but would like to plot some things for outside of the event, if anyone is interested.

Spiral Jeff has been on hiatus and I'm looking to bring him back, but genuinely have no idea where to start and could use some help. He mostly haunts VAS and Empty Pockets. Sometimes he performs some spooky busking.

OG Jeff (bardish) has started working at the boarding house, so any youths who live there have probably had a chance to meet him by now. He's been hanging around town going stir crazy because he gave himself runner's knee and fell down a small ravine, so if anyone wants to have some light slice of life fun with a neurotic middle aged dad, he could use some friends. Or enemies! He's a social butterfly, and he's also mostly sober (but on the lookout for a weed hookup), so any sober buddies would be cool. And other middle aged folks. And parents. And musicians. And magical types. And so on. He also likes to support the arts and hangs out at Empty Pockets a lot, though he'll never perform, and he'll leave if his younger eviler CRAU self is around.

Anyway hmu here or on discord (weeyotch) if you're interested in things outside of the event, as I'm not in the chat.

[heatherbythesea]

As things have finally, finally settled down for this loser (me) I wouldn't mind doing something with Spiral Jeff and Heather. After all, Heather has been at Empty Pockets and the open mic night at least twice.

...Even if I have no idea what the Spiral has done.

[ A bit of character history I'm reminded of: Heather has some history with a demon who slipped inside a friend of hers -- basically, Harrison called it up to get empowered (after being incapacitated by a severe head injury) and it seemed to work, but... demons don't heal. What was Harrison has died off, even if his body didn't, leaving a demon in the driver's seat. ]
If Heather thought she had a chance to actually help someone in a similar situation, she's likely to go all in. Even if she's not human anymore herself.

Not dreamscape related

[impostor_syndrome]

Rose let me bring in a living mask that kills people through the Shapes in the Snow TDM prompt, and I'm excited to make that everyone's problem. With a host, it's about as intelligent (and as communicative) as a Pokémon. It brought its own host for its first appearance, but after that host withers away or gets pulverised, it can take another one if someone puts it on, killing them in the process. If the mask itself dies, either from being smashed to pieces/exploded/etc or from going too long without a host and starving, it'll reappear somewhere on the island. It is identical to the mask Purple was wearing at Dahlia's birthday bash.

In its canon getting killed by one of these that already has a host would turn you into another one, but the process has been thrown into disarray by the island's magic and metaphysics and no longer functions. However it still grabs you and sprays acidic blood into your face at point-blank range if it catches you, which is not conducive to good health even before the part where it's trying and failing to disassemble your bones and build another mask out of them.
With a human host it has no other natural weapons except for, like, punching people; if it latched onto a nonhuman it could use their claws and horns and stuff but not any magic that isn't a bodily function, and it would struggle with figuring out how to operate larger and more complex nonhuman parts like wings. The host body is preserved well enough to run and jump in pursuit of prey, but it's not good at climbing anything less regularly-shaped than a ladder. The mask's senses are mostly equivalent to human but it has better night vision.

How it attacks people once it's attached to a host (cw body horror, emetophobia, possession details)

Hit me up here or on discord or plurk if you'd like to do something with this!

[imjustaman]

Snakes (CW for murder)

will probably have nightmares about his former boss, Lucrece Posey, as she was the one who murdered him (after he tried to murder her for mysterious reasons). A lot of the nightmares may involve the mortuary at Justice, Nevada, where the gang had their meetings and Snakes was poisoned. Good dreams (if he ends up in the oasis) probably involve him in control of various towns, maybe even Pumpkin Hollow, making everyone's lives better, and everyone loving him for it. And winning a lot at gambling.

Sephiroth (CW for arson, mass murder, child abuse, child soldiers)

will likely have nightmares about going insane again, burning things, trying to send Meteor on Gaia (or on Pumpkin Hollow), and/or his horrific childhood being made into a child soldier at the hands of mad scientists. It's also possible he may dream about his friends turning against him, which actually happened in Genesis's case and is his fear with Zack and Angeal. He would likely need to be convinced he's sane now, he's safe now, and these things are not happening.

Snakes

[thelatechrisfreeman]

Chris the coroner could wander into the mortuary nightmare without initially realizing it, if you like. :) Always down for shenanigans with these two.

Blue | Daisy, Ruby, Alice, Gwen, CT, Melanie, Margaret

[ghostbullet]

(Margaret technically isn't here yet, but I want to get her in before the dreams so we're putting her here anyway.)

For non-event stuff, I've got a post up with open prompts for Melanie, CT, Alice and Daisy as well as links to where Ruby and Gwen are accessible, and if anyone wants me anywhere else I'm open! But onto event stuff...

General: I am very open to dreams being influenced to varying degrees by the people joining the characters in them, and to vice versa!

👻Melanie: In some of Melanie's own dreams, she'll be able to see, but not consistently. Melanie has a lot of baggage around her autonomy, bodily and in general, so that's going to be a big theme. The clearest image I have involves:

CW: medical adjacent horror, mutilation, immobilisation

Her being immobilised, tied to a bed that looks something between a medical stretcher and a camping cot as something/one tries to cut through/mutilate her leg.

Or something generally along those lines. Being trapped in the Archives with no way out is also a viable backdrop, during which she would definitely be without her eyes as the fear would be being trapped again despite the drastic measures.

🌼Daisy: For Daisy, some options are going to require more individual tailoring because the Hunt gets messy like that. BUT Daisy's main, canonical nightmares focus on the Buried. So: welcome to the dirt dimension. You're buried alive, being crushed repeatedly etc, though for the sake of being able to escape at all you'll have more range of movement than people in the Buried usually get but basically no sense of which direction to go. Daisy will not be handling this well!

🌹Ruby: Ruby has actually been trapped in something similar to the Oasis before, so I'd love to do more with that since last time was pretty one-and-done. Ruby would be very easily trapped by a dream about a world where Beacon didn't fall and her loved ones are all still alive, including Penny transferring to the school, so you can meet some of her old friends! ...and then have to rescue her from it and have to get through the nightmares.

I want to focus mostly on the Oasis in terms of her own dreams, because a lot of the obvious nightmares for her are more than I'd like to play out, but she can go through and/or influence other nightmares.

🩰Gwen: The most important thing about any dream/nightmare area born of Gwen's memories is it will all be in mood-ring changing style watercolours like in the movie. What colours each person inside sees things as are tied to their own emotions/perceptions, not anyone else's, so you can go crazy with it.

For this, I'm most likely to play with her Village trauma from her CRAU where she was brainwashed, had her own fears about her capacity for violence turned against her, and ultimately killed someone. The shape of this isn't fully formed yet. A much clearer image I have is based on the Canon Events dilemma, where people will find themselves walking along a sprawling web where falling into the nodes along the way throws you into certain tragic 'canon events' (either of Gwen's or the equivalent of the other character's), and breaking any strings causes horrifying knock-on effects.

💾Alice: Alice is a tough one, because we still have relatively little backstory and her canon point is still only at 10 out of 30 episodes. But I have some thoughts. My main idea is going full Lonely domain vibes (an endless maze of cubicles with old computers in, laced with fog), with maybe a side of echoes of Sam, her friend Colin and her brother Luke that keep slipping through her fingers in horrifying ways. These could be together or separate. But playing with her feelings of being nothing but a drone and the extra trauma brought up in that by the Aster situation is also an option I'm thinking about.

I could also draw on future knowledge as foreshadowing for her eventual canon update, but I don't want to put massive spoilers in this comment lmao.

🔪CT: I have one very vivid mental image based on her death, bleeding out alone in a tiny escape pod. (The lights are all red. There's blood all over the floor that it's easy to slip on. Every steps you take towards the door to the cockpit only takes you less than half the distance it should. The space visually never changes but it seems infinitely long. You've got to make it to the door to cross the area.) Besides this, there's also the possibility of a very dangerous game of hide and seek where if you get caught, you're probably gonna die.

I'm also a little tempted by her initially needing to be yanked out of the oasis because it's of her long-gone colony, where someone might get to see Connie rather than CT for a moment.

💉Margaret: There's a literal dream episode of MASH. I have not yet watched it. But the general expectation of themes will be war, the endless flow of wounded soldiers, and the weird ways all of that ties into what the world expects Margaret to do after the war (aka: get married, be a housewife, etc). A not-fully-formed thought is a scenario where someone thinks they've stumbled into her oasis dream, because it seems to be a happy civilian home life, but it's actually a nightmare and there's some horrifying shit going on.

All of this subject to further elaboration/change as I think more and discussion happens.

other dream ideas placeholder [do not reply]

[ghostbullet]

Nimbus- Sheo, Drelasa

[blindwatchersees]

Please reply to this post for planning. The one under it will be for writing my plans and details.

Planning goes here

[blindwatchersees]

Drelasa: Drelasa’s experience with dreams as a false paradise will drive her to flee the dream’s center immediately. However, the nature of the nightmare around her will rapidly amplify her mutations, causing her to become something all the more distinctly Sixth House. That being said, once she overcomes the terror and disorientation of being transformed into what is effectively a flute-tentacle naga creature, she’s going to be well adapted to navigating the nightmare scape, and even possibly empowered to help others traverse and navigate the nightmare. I plan to have a closed thread where Siebren encounters her mid-transformation, and after that, I’m open to dream interactions generally. I’m also cool with her having interactions before that, though they will mostly comprise of her trying to convince others to leave the nucleus.

Sheogorath: I haven’t settled on how well Sheogorath will keep a singular form in the dream world, though considering his canon exists inside a dream, there’s a chance he’ll manifest absolutely normally. Not entirely sure. I do know that he’ll be able react quite flexibly to absurd dream logic, and he’s absolutely up for accompanying others on that task.

[griefs]

So I'd made a pact with myself that I wouldn't do what SH as a series has done and run Pyramid Head into the ground but in this case, I think in James' bad dream you'll have a chance to glimpse the man the myth the legend Mr Pyramid himself.

Here's a very rough idea -

So I'm thinking the nightmare will be very maze-like and difficult to tell if it's in a hospital or a hotel. The longer you try to make your way through the building, the more corroded and industrial things begin to look, mirroring the Silent Hill "otherworld." I'm also thinking like.... ok you know how glow in the dark stuff is easier to see in your peripheral vision than when you look directly at it? (Hoping I'm not like having an "actually that means you have such and such eye condition" moment here lol) Sometimes you'll pass by an open door and catch something in the corner of your eye. You get the sense that there's something horrific there, but when you look directly at it? There's nothing. Very strange! Maybe the dreamer is fighting with a bad memory here.

Some of your typical SH2 monsters will probably make appearances, and there will be some ominous scraping sounds echoing through the halls. I think maybe one or two folks can have a run in with Pyramid Head alongside James.

The whole sense of the nightmare will be centered on the desperation of trying to find someone, and the growing dread that something horrible has happened to them. There will probably be medical themed horror and such.

I dont reeeally plan to do the good dream oasis but if I do it'll just be something sweet and not at all creepy :) focused on married bliss.

[imjustaman]

This sounds like a fun thing to throw Sephiroth at, if you're up for that!

Drake's kids

[tisnotthehouse]

Shen Qingqiu is available to help people navigate the dreamscape -- he's been in magical dreams before, so he'll be on his guard and ready for a fight. Pyotr Stamatin will likely need help escaping the oasis -- it might be a good time to deepen his existing CR.

For Tarantulas I've cleared something a little special with Rose. When he and Dawn are pulled into the dream, they'll be separated, with Dawn placed in her own little oasis deep in the nightmare. I'm looking for 1-2 companions to accompany Tarantulas and help him navigate the nightmare to retrieve her and get them both out safely. (I'm afraid that more than that would make the thread too unwieldy.) If we pull this off we may even get to have a little encounter with Nyarlathotep at the end of it all, hehehe~

Re: Drake's kids

[redlightgreenlight]

Just putting it here officially that Valdis will help rescue Dawn <3

Connor | Ellen Ripley

[2onostromo]

Ellen Ripley: (CW for gore, body horror, pregnancy, implied sexual abuse, misogyny, more to be expected...)

The bi-focus of Ripley's nightmares will be centered around Xenomorph and her crew's science officer Ash. Both individuals represent the core of her trauma, which covers greater themes of misogyny, abuse, being overpowered, etc. The Xenomorph induces themes of body horror and forced ‘pregnancy’ by way of its biology. She may find herself in a similar situation as Kane, attacked by a face-hugger and forced to carry the small alien inside of her stomach. She may also find herself simply hunted, cocooned, and subjected to Xenomorphs abject means of reproduction. Nightmares of this variety will fall into the traditional ‘alien-scare’ category. Very physical, very action-heavy, very fast-paced.

Dreams involving Ash may be more abstract. From colleague to attacker, from presumed-human to droid, Ash creates heavy feelings of distrust. He attacks her in a way that feels implicitly sexually violent, but without explicitly playing out that way, presumably because he’s a droid. Still, this doesn’t make his actions any less traumatizing, and she internalizes his violence as such. She may look into the face of people she’s begun to trust and see him. She may relive the incident, but without her other colleagues there to help her. Maybe she’ll be forced to kill Ash herself, over and over and over. Or maybe he’ll kill her, since that is his end goal after all.

Other aspects will include the deaths of her colleagues, and her inability to save them.

I like the idea of her as a rescuer who becomes side tracked by her own nightmares. She’ll claw her way out of these experiences if it means helping others. Will she be successful in this? We’ll see…

[not_a_traitor]

I can offer Gaeta as a rescuer, if you're interested! The idea of something out there hunting you down -- especially a human-seeming android -- hits a lot of his basest fears regarding the Cylons, so it'd be very easy for her nightmares to blend with his and yank him off track. (Also a hell of a way to kick off some CR, lol.)

Harvey! | NPCs + Jon, Laios, Basira, and Hector

[apocryphalarchivist]

For non-event plotting I've got going on, I've got:
- Jon working nearly full-time at Blackwood Brews, leaving him in town more often, potentially a good opportunity for run-ins with negative CR he's been dodging apologizing to?
- Hector and Capochin starting a Pumpkin Hollow sect of the Bizzyboys
- General late-winter top-levels I've been pending working on! (If anyone's after anything specific, shoot me a message!)

As for the event, I'm trying to be careful about overloading my plate, so I'll likely be taking only two or three threads per character. I'm completely okay with characters influencing the dreams and nightmares they take part of, for both my characters entering your character's dreams, or vice versa!! I'll have some options listed below in my plotting comment!

NPCs

Elias Coldwood, due to still being in a plot thread that will have potential ramifications on his availability for a while, will be sitting this one out.

Teddy Pennyburrow and Esmeray of Paradesium might have top-levels of their own (I'm still deciding on that one), but will definitely be available upon request even if not!

Teddy will absolutely be caught in the Oasis, and his influence on dreams will offer potential glimpses into the greater Emerald Isles, including some of their tight-collared environments of education. His nightmares are more socially-oriented, but he is deeply afraid of being hunted.

Esmeray's influence on dreams will bring familiar imagery of Paradesium, or unfamiliar imagery of cold, cliffside villages elsewhere on the continent of Leviathan, often featuring festivals in the former and quiet days in the latter. Her nightmares involve hopelessness, claustrophobia, and mutilation.

PCs

Jon Sims will be having dreams that range from calm and magical to mundane but comfortable. He'll be getting caught in the Oasis for sure, even if just for a little while. His nightmares are still being ironed out specifically, but he often slots into the nightmares of others as a monster, or something that adds a pervasive feeling of being watched, exposure, or scrutiny to those he's trapped with. (Being a monster in others' nightmares is a nightmare of his, in and of itself!)

Laios Touden will also be hard pressed to leave the dreams of the Oasis, where he takes a shape of one of two creatures: a silver wolf with golden eyes, or a three-headed chimera. His own personal dream is a monster-filled ecosystem, with himself as an apex predator and functional part of it, but he's prone to wandering into other people's dreams without changing his shape to match. His nightmares involve scrutiny and disapproval from crowds of faceless people, or war/senseless acts of violence from humans.

Basira Hussain doesn't stay in the Oasis for long, leaving dreams of simple comforts and peace to find her way out through the sprawling nightmares. Her nightmares consist of the Fears Apocalypse and deep, profound senses of isolation.

Hector Monaque potentially stays in the Oasis as long as he's able; his dream is a version of himself as Inspekta, loved and revered beside the rest of the gods, as a perfect version of himself, without any of the doubts or struggles for purpose that he feels. His nightmares involve either a full collapse of the dream he'd lived in, a fulfillment of his attempts at causing the apocalypse and the calamity that follows, or a recollection of Drain, starting from the bottom and having to desperately scale it while it floods, leaving everyone else behind to escape it.

-

If any of this is of interest, or you'd like to have influences from these characters in your own characters dreams, drop me a comment here, a PM to this journal, or shoot me a message on Discord!

Dream/Nightmare Ideas (do not reply!)

[apocryphalarchivist]

Teddy Pennyburrow

Dreams

- A university in Victoria's Crossing, on the Emerald Isles, that potentially expands across the campus enough to see some of the city. A high-stress but very productive-feeling place
- A little cottage in rural Cahoots, where he's absolutely thrilled to be receiving guests

Nightmares

- House fires - especially, that of the Dormitory House burning down
- Being pursued by a countless number of hunting dogs

Esmeray of Paradesium

Dreams

- A sphinx village built into the sheer side of a mountain, connected by rope bridges; it's a fairly standard day, and is mostly just very calm, comfortable, and bright
- A festival in the stenholm of Paradesium, celebrating the Vernal Equinox
- A quieter day in the temple within Paradesium

Nightmares

- Cave-ins and crushing, collapsing buildings, and earthquakes - generally, senses of claustrophobia and isolation
- Inaccessible loved ones in peril
- Mutilation, especially sorts that leave one trapped or immobilized, heavily leaning on broken wings

Jonathan Sims

Dreams

- A dream given to him by Erin Peters, a library, come alive with quiet but palpable magic
- His flat from his life before Pumpkin Hollow, set to be a quiet gathering of friends for dinner
- A normal day at work in the Research Department of the Magnus Institute, structured and mundane

Nightmares

- The Unknowing (featuring a nightmare version of Nikola Orsinov!)
- The tunnels beneath the Magnus Institute
- Scenarios where he isn't able to stop himself from hurting people (often featuring a full loss of his humanity, at least visually)
- Being trapped somewhere, especially with being physically restrained

Laios Touden

Dreams

- A monstrous jungle, with himself as a three-headed chimera
- A cold forest, with himself as part of a pack of dire wolves

Nightmares

- The bitter childhood wish of his for his village to be overrun by monsters becoming true
- One of his monstrous forms being hunted by humans
- Crowds of people scrutinizing every move he and the other person he's with take

Basira Hussain

Dreams

- A flat by a riverside, where there's just the quiet daily measures to go through
- Sitting in a police car in an empty lot neighboring a field at night, listening to the radio and watching the stars

Nightmares

- The Fears Apocalypse, containing any number of nightmares relating to one of the 14 within

Hector Monaque

Dreams

- God Grove, where he's a more "perfect" version of himself, without all the worries that led him to causing the problems that he did

Nightmares

- Apocalypse, the Rift tearing the world apart and harming people in the process
- Drain flooding, having to escape it by climbing up and past other people desperately trying to escape the same

Albion | George Elsworth

[stonecoldtop]

Actual thoughts below for editing reasons, please reply to this post

[stonecoldtop]

Nightmares:

Arcadia

This doesn't weigh on him day to day any more, but it is the natural place for nightmares to take place. It'll grapple a lot with the idea of what it means to become a monster to survive, and what it means to not have had to.
The Master of the House will certainly make a showing, as may characters who, like George, were once human and are now part of the House. (The Surgeons are likely, because they're my favourites from the last time I played out the inside of the House.)

Abandonment

This does weigh on him regularly. He's lost a lot of people in his life, most of them through no fault on either side.

Other

War isn't enough of a feature in his mind to warrant a full nightmare, but if he's with someone for whom war is the main theme, then snippets of WWI may slip in from his mind.

Dreams:

Arcadia

Again. This time it's more about being in control, and having Gilbert with him.
Changelings can theoretically lucid dream, so he'll be aware of what's happening, and possibly be able to navigate the dream layout to reach things he wants to see, but he won't have any real control over it and it wont make him much more easily convinced to leave.

Batya | Zivia, Edgar, Cassandra

[not_the_last]

I very much Do Not have specific ideas yet for any of mine, but you know I love a good nightmare/dreamshare plot. Edgar and Cassandra both have past trauma that could easily make an appearance; beyond that I'm still pondering. If you want to brainstorm with me about how to bash our blorbos together, please reply here or hit me on discord!

DO NOT REPLY - plan tracking post, still in progress

[not_the_last]

Zivia:
* top-level posted
* tag-outs planned to: Mulcahy (done), Margaret Houlihan, Lev and Anzu (done), Mariner (done), Ruby
* tag-ins expected from: Hawkeye (done)

Edgar:
* top-level posted
* tag-outs planned to: Radar (done), Darcy?, Kitty, Neil
* tag-ins expected from: Nimona (done)

Cassandra:
* top-level posted
* tag-outs planned to: Phil, Darcy?, CT, Arthur Lester (done), Okie?
* tag-ins expected from: Erik, Helena (done)

Meghan's Crew

[lordoftheozarks]

General Blanket Statement: I have routinely failed at writing dream/nightmare threads that go anywhere and they seem to be really difficult for me as a subject matter. Since I am in such a state of burnout already, I am planning to go pretty light on this event if I don't outright hiatus. So, while I'm open to plotting some things I'm begging people not to make me write a whole fleshed out nightmare; I just can't do it and you won't enjoy it even if I do.

John Crichton: There's plenty of nightmare fuel to choose from in alien technicolor. If you have any specific things you want to pull him into hit me with ideas. It could include Harvey or not. Crichton is usually pretty good at telling when he's having his mind messed with, so he might be the most likely to be able to fight it or help others. If you need a rescue, he's your guy.

Max Maximum: He's likely to get stuck in the lotus eater dreams. He might need a rescue. Otherwise, he might be stuck there for most of it, sidelined.

Erik Osborne: Erik usually can't dream. Vampires aren't physically capable of it. So, this might throw him for a loop just because it's so unexpected. His nightmare is likely to come with him being overpowered by his beast and potentially turning into a bird-man that wants to eat your face off. I might stick him in the nice dreams section, though, just to spare him more of that pain unless anyone else has ideas for him.

[hate_gettin_older]

Hey how would Erik feel about meeting a vampire who looms rather large in Cassandra's psyche?

Vonn || Chris Freeman and Heather Harne

[heatherbythesea]

[wanders in two weeks late with a Starbucks...]

Wandering into Mortanne's domain sounds like exactly Chris's jam, haha. Anybody who wants to do that can look for my messy child to thread with. We can do so much body horror! :D (Chris's nightmares generally center around the unsolved murder of their father, which was also Chris's first death and the event that gave them powers. Who wants to delve into unresolved grief around a parent who did a lot of harm while trying to protect his kid? Let's unpack all the trauma!)

Heather's dreams will center around her being in merrow shape and swimming in the ocean. If all you want to do is see someone turn into a giant (fish-)woman, she's where you want to be. (Also, like, if someone has fears of drowning, she'd be able to save you!)

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion isn't uninterested in seeing a giant fish-woman, if Heather will be in the oasis. Nature is beautiful!

Cam | Wilson, Bastion, Purple, Moiré, Fuelweaver (in order of prominence)

[takethatnature]

Still working on the rest of my plans, but Wilson in particular has canon this can tap into, plus he's an Ocularum member. The eldritch god-adjacent entity or entities that control the Constant and that he was briefly in thrall to, "Them", are associated with nightmares. And he has plenty of nightmares about Them on his own.

The Plan Zone (don't reply to this)

[takethatnature]

Bastion: Observing Heather in fish mode in the oasis
Wilson: Getting chased by hounds with Pennyburrow
Purple: Meeting Music in the maze-library

Tavion Axmis | Star Wars: Jedi Academy (Legends) - Newbie saying hi!

[of_dathomir]

Hello, everyone!

Just came on board thanks to the wonderful Meghan...more characters may come because this place looks fun as heck, but for now it's just this dark side loony.

Potted history: born a Nightsister of Dathomir, she was later part of the Empire Reborn movement and ultimately ended up leading her own Dark Side cult. (How she ends up in Imperial service is unwritten, but I've made some educated guesses to fill out her backstory.) Standard array of dark side abilities, but with a creative streak to her planning not usual for them.

Her first priority is to get the capital to get her lightsaber back, and then she's going to plan. My basic idea is to aim her at the Enforcer position, and I've been pointed at Fever and Valdis for IC setting that up, if people are willing. :)

The fun thing with what I'm seeing coming up, and I hope to explore with you all, is that Tavion's life-long ambition has been the accumulation of dark side power to preserve her own existence - that was the fear that drove her and also limited her development. Now that the metaphorical other shoe has dropped, things get unpredictable. Traversing her nightmares now will basically be a potted biography, and I look forward to writing that.

But above all, just looking forward to meeting people and seeing what CR falls out. Tavion is wildly unpredictable right now, and it's already proving really fun. I'm happy to throw any ideas at the wall to see what sticks, so if any occur to you, I'm thrilled to talk about them.

[redlightgreenlight]

Hey! Valdis would be happy to discuss where Tavion might fit in with the enforcers! Valdis runs a specialized department under the umbrella of the Enforcers called the Department of Supernatural Affairs. They focus on the demons, monsters and gods so that the other enforcers, led by Cerrit, can focus on policing and protecting the people of pumpkin hollow.

dream plots for mira's crew

[abhorrently]

hey guys! i've decided to forego a more traditional plotting structure for this and instead try something a little different. if you'd like to encounter either fever or helena in the dreamscape, please comment and let me know, and i'll discuss with you what might come to pass in it as well as what you might want to bring into the mix - i intend on leveraging the ability to get weird with it as well as the potential for horror. that said, if you'd prefer things on more the surreal side without the scares, we can do that too!

basically, let me customize and tailor it to each character, because i'm not great with this sort of event and writing up a general setting. it's a dream event, let's get wild.

[tehilim127_1]

Would love to have Cass and Helena interact in this, and either Cass or Zivia with Fever, if we've both got time and energy.