Plot Opportunity || Shards of the City Fountain & YOU
This is a bit of a long post, but- if you'd like to interact with an aspect of our City here, and want to do something potentially fun and exciting with your character, any character, make new CR, explore your character's worlds, etcetera... please red on!
Over the last few months, Nemu has been focusing her research on possible routes of escape from the City, with inspiration from the since departed icingkills. Joining her in research and, culminating in an escape attempt, are blastiafreak, elevatorkick, eagleofautozam, and overreached! (Let's get a round of applause!)
But wait- you heard me say "escape attempt"? Yes, that's right. That attempt is not only not going to work as planned... it's going to backfire in a way that can affect any character you might wish it to! (Or alternatively, it's also really easy to avoid if you'd rather not deal with it beyond: "Oh something's up with the fountain!") Interested?
What is going to happen?
Those characters mentioned above are going to try and escape the City. How? In summary, they're going to look in to the fountain in order to conjure up the visions of their worlds that appear there, and then... freeze it! Once it's frozen, Nemu will attempt to use a shinigami kidou meant for travel between planes, (or in her canon's case- the world of the living and the dead). But instead of transporting them to their worlds... the kidou splits the ice instead, and the shattered pieces of the frozen fountain water will scatter all across the City! (If you want to know what kind of thinking led up to this attempt, it's here.)
What's this about shards of the fountain?
The fountain will remain empty until people start returning its frozen shards, and those shards will remain frozen until all of them have been collected. In order to collect the shards, characters need to find them--which doesn't necessarily happen deliberately. Upon coming into contact with a shard, a character is plunged into a false version of a place from another character's home world. (Since, see? Looking in to the fountain conjures up a vision of your world... but those shards contain all those possible visions from the fountain itself, now stuck in a shard piece!) They can only break out of this place by finding the "lie"-- which could be as simple as a minor architectural detail or as detailed as a reenactment of a scene from a character's past playing out wrong. The trapped characters can find the lie actively ("Hey, stop signs are supposed to be red, not purple!" "Character X told me this wasn't how it happened!" "Character Y would never do that!" "Character Z doesn't really keep this thing in her desk, does she?") or by accident (by trying to enter a building that isn't there in the real version, for example, or casually interrupting an error-strewn conversation). Once they've found it, they return to wherever they were in the City with the shard in their hands and can take it back to the fountain.
False visions of worlds in a shard? Who the what huh? || SHARD FAQ
Q. How do I get into a shard-world?
A. You find a frozen piece of the fountain water. It would follow naturally that the explosion would distribute these shards around the square, but the City isn't logical like that, so they can be anywhere. Picking up the shiny thing that you found in the gardens is a valid way of getting into a shard. So is tripping over one while getting out of bed in the morning.
Q. What are the worlds inside the shards like?
A. They are replicas of some place from another character's world, as described in an organizational post that will follow. Sometimes something is going on in this replica--a memory is replaying itself no matter what you do, or old friends are showing up and ignoring you--and sometimes it's empty. The catch is always the same, though: something is wrong with this picture. There's at least one thing in the shard-world that isn't true to the original. That's the lie.
Q. Can I interact with things or people inside shard-worlds?
A. Not really. People will brush you off and quickly ignore you, and things will slide back into whatever position they were originally in if you try to mess with them. There's one exception, and that's when you find the lie.
Q. How do I get out of a shard-world?
A. You find the lie. When that happens, you're automatically transported out of the shard back to wherever you were when you found it, except now you're holding it in your hands. It won't melt, though: not until it and all the other shards have been returned to the fountain.
Q. How do I know what the lie is?
A. There are a number of ways you can figure it out! It might be something very simple and universal, like a certain piece of geometry, physics, or society being wrong--maybe there are trees growing upside down, or the stop signs are the wrong color. You might know the person whose world the vision comes from and have heard from them that this isn't the way the memory goes or that's not the shape their childhood home was. Or you could make a network post from within the shard-world (totally possible!), receive responses from people who know more than you do about that world, and have them guide you to the lie.
Q. But what if I don't know the person at all, and the network post thing isn't working out? Or I'd just rather not do that?
A. Then you find the lie by accident.
Q. Okay, how can I find it by accident?
A. You don't have to point at something and go, "That's the lie, that's what's wrong here!" to earn your exit from the shard. You just have to notice it and try to interact with it. So maybe you try to enter a building that isn't really there in the original world, not even knowing that it's the lie. Poof! You're back in the City holding the shard. Maybe you come across some people having a conversation, and they start to veer off from how it really was. It doesn't matter if you don't know that wasn't how it happened: if you interrupt them as they get it wrong, that still counts as having found the lie.
Q. So there's always a way out of the shard-world, no matter how much or how little I know?
A. Yes. It's up to you and the circumstances: knowing enough to find the lie deliberately, being guided through network posts, finding it by accident, or some combination of the three.
So!
Who: Nemu, Rita, Eagle, Arthur, Lightning... and then YOU!
What: Escape attempt gone awry leading to shards of the city fountain which hold false visions of different worlds needing to be retrieved!
When: The experiment will be done on the very beginning of the 1st of Jan., so the plot will run 1/1 to 1/5!
Where: All around the City!
Why: - for plotting and fun times of course!
Another post will go up tomorrow for organizing shard worlds. So you'll be able to fill out a form and post it in comments giving details about your character's home world, and what, in that shard, the "lie" would be. Then people can reply and ask to find that shard, ways to get out of the shard can be discussed, etcetera! You don't even have to have to have your character be trapped in a shard- you can play the part of a character who's world is in a shard, and can help a trapped character from the outside! Opportunities are endless.
So what is this post for? Questions! If anything here is confusing, (and sob I can see how it could be), feel free to ask! "Can we do it like this", "So would this work as a lie?", "How about--"... anything! ASK AWAY and we'll be glad to clear anything up for you!
disclaimer! Mod-approved, and perfectly ignorable by those who don't want to participate in the plot! No one is required to get involved. Characters can simply avoid running into any shards. They don't even have to notice that something is up with the fountain if they don't want to (maybe they're busy away from the center of the square for a few days). So even though we'd LOVE TO HAVE YOU- feel free to pass by.
Over the last few months, Nemu has been focusing her research on possible routes of escape from the City, with inspiration from the since departed icingkills. Joining her in research and, culminating in an escape attempt, are blastiafreak, elevatorkick, eagleofautozam, and overreached! (Let's get a round of applause!)
But wait- you heard me say "escape attempt"? Yes, that's right. That attempt is not only not going to work as planned... it's going to backfire in a way that can affect any character you might wish it to! (Or alternatively, it's also really easy to avoid if you'd rather not deal with it beyond: "Oh something's up with the fountain!") Interested?
What is going to happen?
Those characters mentioned above are going to try and escape the City. How? In summary, they're going to look in to the fountain in order to conjure up the visions of their worlds that appear there, and then... freeze it! Once it's frozen, Nemu will attempt to use a shinigami kidou meant for travel between planes, (or in her canon's case- the world of the living and the dead). But instead of transporting them to their worlds... the kidou splits the ice instead, and the shattered pieces of the frozen fountain water will scatter all across the City! (If you want to know what kind of thinking led up to this attempt, it's here.)
What's this about shards of the fountain?
The fountain will remain empty until people start returning its frozen shards, and those shards will remain frozen until all of them have been collected. In order to collect the shards, characters need to find them--which doesn't necessarily happen deliberately. Upon coming into contact with a shard, a character is plunged into a false version of a place from another character's home world. (Since, see? Looking in to the fountain conjures up a vision of your world... but those shards contain all those possible visions from the fountain itself, now stuck in a shard piece!) They can only break out of this place by finding the "lie"-- which could be as simple as a minor architectural detail or as detailed as a reenactment of a scene from a character's past playing out wrong. The trapped characters can find the lie actively ("Hey, stop signs are supposed to be red, not purple!" "Character X told me this wasn't how it happened!" "Character Y would never do that!" "Character Z doesn't really keep this thing in her desk, does she?") or by accident (by trying to enter a building that isn't there in the real version, for example, or casually interrupting an error-strewn conversation). Once they've found it, they return to wherever they were in the City with the shard in their hands and can take it back to the fountain.
False visions of worlds in a shard? Who the what huh? || SHARD FAQ
Q. How do I get into a shard-world?
A. You find a frozen piece of the fountain water. It would follow naturally that the explosion would distribute these shards around the square, but the City isn't logical like that, so they can be anywhere. Picking up the shiny thing that you found in the gardens is a valid way of getting into a shard. So is tripping over one while getting out of bed in the morning.
Q. What are the worlds inside the shards like?
A. They are replicas of some place from another character's world, as described in an organizational post that will follow. Sometimes something is going on in this replica--a memory is replaying itself no matter what you do, or old friends are showing up and ignoring you--and sometimes it's empty. The catch is always the same, though: something is wrong with this picture. There's at least one thing in the shard-world that isn't true to the original. That's the lie.
Q. Can I interact with things or people inside shard-worlds?
A. Not really. People will brush you off and quickly ignore you, and things will slide back into whatever position they were originally in if you try to mess with them. There's one exception, and that's when you find the lie.
Q. How do I get out of a shard-world?
A. You find the lie. When that happens, you're automatically transported out of the shard back to wherever you were when you found it, except now you're holding it in your hands. It won't melt, though: not until it and all the other shards have been returned to the fountain.
Q. How do I know what the lie is?
A. There are a number of ways you can figure it out! It might be something very simple and universal, like a certain piece of geometry, physics, or society being wrong--maybe there are trees growing upside down, or the stop signs are the wrong color. You might know the person whose world the vision comes from and have heard from them that this isn't the way the memory goes or that's not the shape their childhood home was. Or you could make a network post from within the shard-world (totally possible!), receive responses from people who know more than you do about that world, and have them guide you to the lie.
Q. But what if I don't know the person at all, and the network post thing isn't working out? Or I'd just rather not do that?
A. Then you find the lie by accident.
Q. Okay, how can I find it by accident?
A. You don't have to point at something and go, "That's the lie, that's what's wrong here!" to earn your exit from the shard. You just have to notice it and try to interact with it. So maybe you try to enter a building that isn't really there in the original world, not even knowing that it's the lie. Poof! You're back in the City holding the shard. Maybe you come across some people having a conversation, and they start to veer off from how it really was. It doesn't matter if you don't know that wasn't how it happened: if you interrupt them as they get it wrong, that still counts as having found the lie.
Q. So there's always a way out of the shard-world, no matter how much or how little I know?
A. Yes. It's up to you and the circumstances: knowing enough to find the lie deliberately, being guided through network posts, finding it by accident, or some combination of the three.
So!
Who: Nemu, Rita, Eagle, Arthur, Lightning... and then YOU!
What: Escape attempt gone awry leading to shards of the city fountain which hold false visions of different worlds needing to be retrieved!
When: The experiment will be done on the very beginning of the 1st of Jan., so the plot will run 1/1 to 1/5!
Where: All around the City!
Why: - for plotting and fun times of course!
Another post will go up tomorrow for organizing shard worlds. So you'll be able to fill out a form and post it in comments giving details about your character's home world, and what, in that shard, the "lie" would be. Then people can reply and ask to find that shard, ways to get out of the shard can be discussed, etcetera! You don't even have to have to have your character be trapped in a shard- you can play the part of a character who's world is in a shard, and can help a trapped character from the outside! Opportunities are endless.
So what is this post for? Questions! If anything here is confusing, (and sob I can see how it could be), feel free to ask! "Can we do it like this", "So would this work as a lie?", "How about--"... anything! ASK AWAY and we'll be glad to clear anything up for you!
disclaimer! Mod-approved, and perfectly ignorable by those who don't want to participate in the plot! No one is required to get involved. Characters can simply avoid running into any shards. They don't even have to notice that something is up with the fountain if they don't want to (maybe they're busy away from the center of the square for a few days). So even though we'd LOVE TO HAVE YOU- feel free to pass by.