⇨ THE REALM OF DREAMS

[ringleaders]

Who: EVERYONE!
When: S1:D8 - S1:D18
Where: Visiting the Realm of Dreams.
What: The carnival arrives at a new location and has its first performance week with the new cast, as outlined here. This is a general mingling log for convenience purposes, but players are welcome to make as many other logs for this purpose as desired.
Warnings: Could be a lot of things, around these parts.

THE REALM OF DREAMS↴ As the carnival arrives at its first stop since its recruitment phase, and prepares to put its new band of workers to the test. In the meantime, there is a whole new world of dreams and nightmares to be explored, and threats to be faced on carnival turf. As of S1:D11, the carnival will be opening its doors to the creatures within, and the carnival will be open daily from noon to midnight, though the connection to the realm will be constant. This is an all purpose mingle log for the full duration of the stay, so please mark top levels with some estimate of what days they'll be occurring on. Please bring any mod questions to the original plotting post.

Comments

[periphrasing]

OTA: SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK (or the organic)

Peridot can have kind of a grating presence to some people on a good day, but you know when you really don't want to deal with her? When you haven't been sleeping because you're too worried about getting heckled by phantasms and nightmares.

It doesn't really help that the gem has no real appreciation for the importance of sleep, or any understanding of what a lack of it can do to a person's demeanor. That's why she completely fails to tone it down for the entire duration of the Carnival's stay in this realm, talking loudly and zipping about her business like the world's most insufferable morning person.

Friends and acquaintances who are particularly visibly cranky and exhausted are going to find themselves on the receiving end of some ill-timed deadpan ribbing:

"Sheesh, you look like a total mess. Who up and scuffed your facets?"

CLOSED TO AMETHYST

"Yo Ames! What is "up"?"

That's exactly what you want to hear when you're skulking around Steven's trailer, right Amethyst? Peridot noisily barreling down the path between the Backyard and the Supervisor's grove well after midnight? I thought so. You did make plans to hang out together, after all.

OTA: WILD CARD
Start with your own prompt. Call Peridot in for a maintenance check on some equipment or pester her on the job or something, or try something entirely new! THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER!

[drrdrrdrr]

Amethyst jumps, her hair fuzzing up like a cat's. "Geez, don't startle me like that!!" she says. She looks kind of... not quite embarrassed, but definitely furtive? "Keep it down, willya?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot makes a weird prolonged laugh sound, like a "Hneeehhhhh," and sidles up to Amethyst, grinning like a horrible little shark. "And what are we up to down here?" she quips, glancing around. "Eating some garbage? Playing some... "practical jokes"?"

[drrdrrdrr]

"Uh," says Amethyst, uncharacteristically flustered. "I was, uh... y'know, just... checking on Steven, I guess... Y'know, 'cause he has to sleep and everything..."

[periphrasing]

One eyebrow raises very slightly.

"Steven...? Wait... were there not enough dream catchers left to adequately protect his domicile?"

[drrdrrdrr]

"What? Well, no, there's plenty, but I just... wanted to make sure..." She scratches the back of her neck, feeling embarrassed and not chill at all. "I mean, him and Greg just got here and..."

[fortuneglass]

Hnnnehhhh...?

[The good news at least is that Carly is so very drowsy that she has no idea what Peridot is even saying.

The bad news...] ...Facets..? ...Do I have facets............

[It means she doesn't have any idea what Peridot is saying-and combined with residual Dreamland High, that's really not the best thing for conversation.] You should be even more messy though, you fix things all the time..! ...I just sew things...

[At all.]

[periphrasing]

[The gem cocks her head, confused, before a strange smile quirks the corners of her mouth.]

Wow. You really are a mess... Metaphorically speaking, of course. I was just using an expression!

[fortuneglass]

People keep waking me uuuuuup... [She whines quietly, slumping over the chair she was in.] People aren't supposed to not sleep this long, it's not fairrrrrrr...

...And I still don't get what facets was about either...mess makes sense, but that one...

[Her eyes fall on Peridot for a bit, the woman muttering under her breath before cutting herself short.

And...slowly, her eyes widen...] ...OH..! Because you have gems...

[So close. Yet so far.]

[periphrasing]

[...And so she reiterates:]

Wow. [Like, seriously. Just stunning. She has to pause and take it in.] Why don't you just rest? It should be safe so long as you have one of those dream catcher things nearby, right?

incoming icon mule, it's not the wrong account I swear-

[insidescoop]

Mmmmm... [Blearily, she blinks, half moping at the suggestion.] You say that, but people have been waking me up even with that... I have one around my neck and everything, but they're still doing it..!

'You're not allowed to sleep, remember!' and so on...

For the weak AND organic

[fragileandsoft]

Greg jerks up, blinking hard and wiping at his mouth. He hadn't been sleeping, but getting used to his growing tusks has made Greg a little self conscious about drooling when spacing out.

"Oh... s-sorry, Peridot." Greg waves away the host of tiny nightmares and phantasms away from the fuse box, earning a host of tiny indignant hisses. The creatures, somehow both incredibly dark and glittering, skitter around their feet. He hasn't had the will to shoo them away properly whenever he wakes up. One wraps long, black tendrils around Peridot's foot. "I was just gonna--I'll clean up a little once I'm done here."

[periphrasing]

She's about to say something in response, when she notices the one creature getting all up in her personal space. Whatever was on her mind before is lost as she lets out as a disgusted squeal instead, hopping backwards and flailing her arms. "EW! It's touching me, this one's touching me!!" Peridot shakes her foot viciously, trying to dislodge the little apparition, scolding it directly: "Unhand me at once!"

[fragileandsoft]

Peridot's flailing sends the other dream-creatures scurrying around her, a buzz of indignation and excitement over the noise and movement. For a moment all Greg does is watch the spectacle with a blank stare. Then, hurriedly, he jumps to his feet as he remembers he's a part of this interaction.

"Ah! Sorry! I think it's just hungry, and you're smart." Those aren't really two facts that reassure when put together like that, but Greg's taken it as is. He tries to step forward to help pry the little nightmare off, but pulls back with a mumbled apology--not to Peridot, but the boxy little phantasm made of aluminum he'd nearly stepped on. "Oh. Gee."

[periphrasing]

Peridot cuts in, the inflection of horror in her words only increasing: "It wants to eat my smart!?" She doesn't understand how such a thing could even be possible??? But the dream creature is on her and she's been at the carnival long enough to know not to underestimate the beings they encounter.

She squeaks quietly, holding perfectly still on one foot as the tendrils creep up her leg. Greg gets a desperate stare, a plea for help as she hisses urgently... "What do I do, how do I get rid of it!?"

[fragileandsoft]

"No, nono, don't worry, it's..." Greg trails off, trying to slog through his sleep-deprived memories for the train of thought behind it. "It eats thoughts, which aren't always smart, but smart people have lots of thoughts... but, the leg's pretty far from the head." He says that as though it's a reassurance.

Dream logic has scrambled a few of Greg's thought processes, though the more he talks out loud the more he wonders about making sense. It's harder to follow the loose logic of this realm when saying them out loud. "Try... try being really bored."

OTA

[cuckooed]

Oh, Peridot, don't sass Koel. The glare she gives is subtle but deadly.

"I'm doing my best, dear."

[periphrasing]

Too subtle for Peridot to pick up on.

"If you say so," the gem says casually, shrugging. Food is a non-issue for her, but sometimes she likes to come hang out at the cookhouse just to chat up the other veterans... which puts Koel at an unfortunate risk for over-familiarity. "I don't get it, if not sleeping makes everyone feel so awful, why don't you just go ahead and do it anyway? The Ring Master said it should be safe as long as you have those things hanging around you..."

[cuckooed]

"Not everyone will think to do that." Koel does have dreamcatchers around the kitchen, meanwhile. "And the one other worker I have is more human than I, needing more sleep. I don't have much choice."

[periphrasing]

"Meh. I don't see how they could forget when there was such a big announcement about it." SHRUGS. "Wait. So if you need less sleep..."

Peridot don't do it.

"...Why do you look... so..."

Oh my god.

[waitingforplayer2]

Chiaki rubs one of her ears. She shouldn't complain, really. Peri's doing her a favor by helping with the broken game cabinet.

"I'm okay." Also, she'd really rather not talk about the nightmares. But Peri is loud to her sensitive ears. Still, she peers in over Peridot's shoulder at the broken cabinet, belting colored smoke. "Did you figure out what's wrong?"

[periphrasing]

"I can tell you this much at a glance: Something over-heated. Probably from a short circuit caused by who knows what..." The gem lifts her head from the device, looking up at Chiaki from where she's kneeling at the maintenance panel on the side of this game. Her eyes narrow. "What did you even do to this thing?"

[waitingforplayer2]

She shuffles awkwardly, avoiding Peridot's gaze.

"Just fixing it." So it was obviously not just that.

The cabinet belches another blast of smoke and the motor dies entirely.

[periphrasing]

Peridot yelps and falls back on her ass, staring first at the contraption in horror, and then at Chiaki.

"You tried to fix it?? That's not..." The gem gestures angrily with clawed hands, unable to find her words for a moment as she struggles with impotent fury. "Why do you think we even have an engineering team!? You can't just go fiddling with equipment like that! Tell me exactly what you did."

[waitingforplayer2]

"... It wasn't going fast enough."

The water-gun shooting gallery that makes up the upper part of the cabinet is now bereft of targets, all of which have descended in the absence of a working motor. Previously, it had raised targets at a medium-slow pace. Then Chiaki had tried messing with the controls to make it more challenging.

Then it had died.

"I thought it was because of that belt..." She points out the one she means, which is now hopelessly tangled in the mechanism. "But I think it was attached to too many things."