aftr_ooc | Exploration Event: Neverwere

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Exploration Event: Neverwere

EXPLORATION EVENT: NEVERWERE

By now, the news of the strange vines that frequent the island of Ziziphus will have doubtless begun to circulate in earnest. What initially may have seemed to be ordinary flora that one would expect to frequent a vegetation-rich island like this one will turn out to be something...rather different.

As you'll soon learn.

The Answer Lies With You

Come May 15th, the purpose of these vines will rapidly and unexpectedly become clear. Their examination of the travelers upon their turf will cease, and the forests and hills of Ziziphus will abruptly come alive.

Countless vines will writhe free of the soil and grass, of the bracken and undergrowth. They are, simply put, everywhere - a veritable network of rootlike appendages wound throughout every inch of the island itself - and today they're making their move. They seek to ensnare and coil around anyone and everyone in their path, winding around their arms and legs and pinioning them with remarkable alacrity. Those who are particularly agile may be able to fight their way free...but it's equally likely that they'll be overwhelmed by sheer, incredible numbers. For every vine that's lopped off, burned, or otherwise destroyed, three more spring forth in its place. Everyone on Ziziphus at the time of the 15th will be targeted.

They won't stop until they've wrapped around you entirely. And then...and then...?

Then, you'll start to feel incredibly, peculiarly drowsy. You can't seem to keep yourself from closing your eyes...

And All Your Dreams Are Still As New

Eventually, you wake, and when you do, it is to the most perfect world imaginable. Perhaps it's the world you belong to, having reached a point of peace, no matter how unrealistic. The changes can be as vast and all-encompassing as necessary, or as small as on one, key absence. The villain never existed in the first place. A character never died. A war never occurred, allowing the kingdom to flourish and thrive. Maybe it's a different world entirely - a blissful, ideal paradise, that white-picket fence you always dreamed about, a perfectly suburban house with two-point-five kids and a couple big dogs, just for kicks. No matter the world you're envisioning, there's only one limitation:

This is a world in which your character is earnestly and completely happy, no matter what shifts must take place in order to achieve it. This is a world in which your character has nothing to worry about, a perfect fantasy taken to its logical extreme. They are as successful as they want to be, with the home and family they always imagined.

When coming up with your character's ideal world, consider the following points:

[ ♆ ] If based on their canon, this world may be considered an AU. Conflicts have either already been triumphed over, or never occurred, leaving your character to reap the benefits of peace that come afterwards. What changes need to be made to ensure this blissful peace are entirely up to you. Ideally, your character has achieved everything that they wished to achieve. If they wanted to be a leader, find a cure for an illness, or stop a world destroying event, they have done so.

[ ♆ ] While these fantasy worlds can be based on your character's canon, they do not have to be. The only stipulation is that they must be something your character would feasibly consider their perfect world.

[ ♆ ] Other characters within LifeAftr will most certainly drop into your character's dream world at some point. For close CR, what is their role now? Are you a family? How do others fit in?

[ ♆ ] The mods have worked on a template to help people compose their world, with examples down below!

Of course, characters are hardly restricted to their own dreams. Much the same as the dreams characters would be exposed to during a normal sleep cycle, dreams that seem to expand over years can take place in a fraction of a second. Entire histories can be compounded down to mere minutes.

Additionally, the characters are connected through the very vines that have induced this fantasy, and will allow them to traverse each other's dreams. This crossing over may be purely accidental, or it may be a willful desire to see someone you know. The bottom line is that the more dreams your character takes part in, the more aware they may become that everything is not quite as it seems.

As the event progresses, those who are not on Ziziphus will not be immune. The dreamworld of Mu, bolstered by the intricate network of self-contained fantasies that have abruptly taken up residence in its landscapes, will seek to pull in anyone who falls asleep and trap them under the same spell. Hope you have some coffee on hand, or some other method of stimulating yourself so that you don't doze off, because you very well may not wake if you do.

And Happiness Is What You Need So Bad

As mentioned above, characters' best chances of escaping the vines is to regain awareness that what they’re seeing (and living) is false. There are multiple things that characters may pick up indicating this falsehood, and we encourage people to be creative!

For those who would like a few ideas, discrepancies may show themselves in the following manner:

[ ♆ ] The more dreams your character partakes in, the more confused their roles and identities in these worlds may become. They may assume the role of a soldier in a world that has no need for such things, or identify someone as family in a dream that they are not.

[ ♆ ] While the composer of a dream may have memories of someone close in their canon residing in this world, characters from LifeAftr cannot have memories of someone they've never met before. A large discrepancy could occur if, for example, a close family member does not recognize the name of your character’s life partner.

[ ♆ ] Clocks and numbers. One of the largest indications of dreams is often the inability to read time and numbers. Your character may have a watch, or attempt to read a train timetable, only to find they cannot.

[ ♆ ] A total lack of conflict, no matter how unrealistic, may give away the false nature of these worlds. For example, even little things like running out of food or needing to do an undesirable chore will never come to pass...ever.

The more your character can decouple themself from this false reality, the lesser the hold of the vines that keep them entrapped. As more gaps in the fabricated narrative appear, the fantasy world will start to decay - perhaps in a very visceral, physical sense, or perhaps in a more abstract sense - and flickers of reality will begin to creep in: the strong stench of rot, the sensation of being bound up in vines, the heavy sense of fatigue that weighs you into the ground. If you can rouse yourself from this dream utterly, the vines will not fight to keep you. You can claw yourself free without any barrier, save the extreme lethargy that will accompany waking.

It seems that the vines didn't expect you to be able to wake at all.

What Fun It All Would Be

Naturally, there's more at stake than some fun little dreams where no one wants for anything. As circumstances would have it, the vines that keep your characters trapped in their fantastical delusions are slowly sapping them of life, as evidenced by the incredible exhaustion that sets in, should you free yourself. The instant the vines put you under, they have begun to feed upon you, and your capacity to sustain them can only last so long. Likewise, those who are caught in Mu's pull will risk death the longer they are under - if not by malnutrition and dehydration, then by being slowly drained of life by whatever has commandeered the land of Mu.

Once trapped, characters have four days to free themselves through their own skill and cunning, or to be freed by an intervening party that forcibly wakes them or cuts them out of the vines' thrall. During that period, they will grow progressively weaker. For example, a character freed on the first day may only need a couple hours of recovery time. A character freed on the very last day may need a full day to shake off the soporific effects of the vines.

Those who die in the grip of those fantasy realms without being woken will suffer a death, and will need to submit the occurrence to our Deaths page. Their death penalties will not be reduced and must be endured for the entire period.

What Next?

On the third day of this onslaught, the Storyteller will attempt to contact those that are still conscious and free of the vines' influence - it will take them some time to reach those still awake without risking them being sucked into the fantastical vortex that has been made of Mu.

From there, questions will be answered...and a solution will be presented for those still awake to exact it.

Lastly, we would like to thank Michelle, player of our resident Mira, Akechi, and Noctis, for proposing this plot!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] May 15th: The vines make their move, ensnaring characters in ideal fantasy worlds
[ ♆ ] May 17th: The Storyteller will make contact with those they can, as well as issue information and a potential solution
[ ♆ ] May 18th: Those that have not freed themselves from the vines or from Mu will suffer a death

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

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While this is optional, it may be helpful for event plotting!

Character name:
Character canon:
Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? Whether it's an idealized AU or a different world entirely, feel free to expand on the idea behind it here!
Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Are they a content ruler? A cheerful everyman? A solitary hermit? The only limitation is that this is something that makes them genuinely happy.
Other roles characters might assume in this world: If you're considering giving your character a family or friends, but you're not sure which characters might be involved, it's a good idea to add a comment below that you can edit to add in characters and their roles as plotting continues!
Potential discrepancies others may pick up: Does your character have a significant other that wouldn't recognize another character as a friend? Is there a jarring disparity between one's role in canon and one's role in this newly imagined universe that may hint that things are not as they should be? Get creative!

Character name: 
Character canon:
Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? Whether it's an idealized AU or a different world entirely, feel free to expand on the idea behind it here!
Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Are they a content ruler? A cheerful everyman? A solitary hermit? The only limitation is that this is something that makes them genuinely happy.
Other roles characters might assume in this world: If you're considering giving your character a family or friends, but you're not sure which characters might be involved, it's a good idea to add a comment below that you can edit to add in characters and their roles as plotting continues!
Potential discrepancies others may pick up: Does your character have a significant other that wouldn't recognize another character as a friend? Is there a jarring disparity between one's role in canon and one's role in this newly imagined universe that may hint that things are not as they should be? Get creative!

Character name: The Hunter (

meredream)
Character canon: Bloodborne

Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? That he never contracted whatever disease that lead the Hunter to going to Yharnam to find a vague cure and signing up to join on the Hunt.

Briefly explain your character's role in this world: A nameless man wandering a a long path. No seriously. The Hunter's dream is incredibly basic because his happiest dream is a mere idle fantasy. He won't have any of his equipment/Hunter's outfit/ect, however.

Other roles characters might assume in this world: As the Hunter does not yet have much cross-canon CR in LifeAfter, anyone who wanders into the Hunter's dream will simply be someone else who's waking the same path as he is. Characters from Bloodborne itself can be found in worn graves lining the road.

Potential discrepancies others may pick up: The biggest discrepancy is how starkly simple this dream is, almost as if it was born of an idle fantasy rather then any deep longing on the Hunter's part. It's literally just a path - a straight line with a moon in the sky. There is also a path beside the one the Hunter himself is walking on - one that's covered with thick trees and bushes but if someone squints hard enough, they'll see a few friends watching and waiting.

Character name: Seto (

buryyourfriends)
Character canon: Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins Of The Moon

Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? Seto's dream will be taking place inside the dream he shared with Ren in canon - a normal, everyday high school. There's no apocalypse, no crazy AI guy trying to kill him, nothing. Seto's friends are still alive (Crow, Ren, PF and Sai), although they're conveniently "away" unless Crow or Ren tag in.

...bar one situation.

Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Seto's just a normal kid living his best life as a high school student. He has parents in this dream, but they're vaguely defined and, for those he's talked to about his Grandpa, have traits of the older man split between the two.

Other roles characters might assume in this world: Characters from Seto's canon are all sorted into 'students' as per the school dream from the manga. As for everyone from LifeAftr, they'll be split between teachers and students, but in a weird way. Seto defines age by height, so if you're tall enjoy being a teacher regardless of your age and shorter characters may wind up as students.

Potential discrepancies others may pick up:
All the people that aren't characters Seto knows from canon/met on LifeAftr are blank-faced "insert background character" kind of pod people. They will respond if spoken too, however, and those with CR with Seto may find some of the student's personalities...familiar. Almost as if something copy and pasted their personalities onto the students. Also it's impossible to leave the school itself despite anything stating otherwise and it's always nighttime outside.

Finally there is a desk beside Seto's that has a white flower in a vase on top of it. Disturbing this flower is a bad idea.

Character name: Merle Highchurch
Character canon: The Adventure Zone

Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? Well, if you weren't living on island time already, you're definitely living on island time now. It's essentially Enso, but with a lot more quaint beachfront property. Ever heard James W. Buffett's hit tune "Margaritaville"? That's basically what you're living right now. All margaritas all night long. Virgin ones for the kids. Lots of music and dancing every night. Hawaiian shirts for everybody. The music in the background is mainly a hit list of Kenney Chesney, Jimmy Buffett, and (inexplicably) Kesha.

The living vines make a feature appearance as everyone's favorite sitcom character -- you know, the one that gets cheers every time they enter the room -- that is just such a rascal! They're mischievous, playing pranks and such, and almost... flirtatious? Oh god.

Also there's just lots of the Arboreali around. Merle loves those things. Damn.

Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Merle is a stay at home dad who can party with his kids without it being weird. Also, he's filthy rich. Basically, Merle can just chill twenty-four-sev and use some of those 1,999 Party Points for good.

Also we don't talk about his relationship with the vines.

Other roles characters might assume in this world: Well, the whole IPRE are there Already, and they're a big happy family and they all love each other and no one ever fights and it's great. In this house, we love and support Lucretia. Also, I guess everyone's aware Merle's a dad now, because Mavis and Mookie are making appearances as loving children who don't actually need that much looking after. Even Mookie, who is somehow managing not to poison himself instantly despite being in a tropical island.

Other characters can show up and chill, Merle honestly doesn't give a shit who or what you are as long as you adhere to rule no. 1: "No bummers". It's on one of these signboards posted on the island. The rest of the rules in that picture are on there too hell why not. Come party with him. The most important thing is everyone loves each other and has fun.

Potential discrepancies others may pick up: When entering this dream, you will start to genuinely enjoy Kenny Chesney. You will think "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" is a jam.

That is just unsustainable.

Also everyone's favorite dimension voring artist John Hunger will appear, only he'll be totally chill. This is pretty weird to anyone who knows about the Hunger. He'll be looking pretty opalescent for a human also, but it's fine. He gives motivational seminars at the beach that feature such hits as "You've gotta dance every day" and "Ball till you fall and then get back up and ball some more" and "Socks with sandals are in".

The motivational speaking isn't that great, honestly, and will start to get more and more repetitive as the dream goes on.

Character name: Myia
Character canon: Original

Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? So some people might look at Myia's canon and be like, "The best way to make this a utopia is to get rid of the cannibalism and the capitalism and dismantle the harvester state". And you wouldn't be wrong. But you would also completely miss the mark of what Myia thinks would make it a utopia.

Meaning the world revolves around Myia. Instead of capitalism we're now in feudalism. There's a giant golden castle in a quaint little village of majority-bug people. Everything is Myia-themed. All love Myia.

Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Myia is a queen sitting on her throne in Bugtown while her loyal forager-type harvesters collect fruit and plant people for her to eat. She eats lingonberry crepes every day and plant steak every night.

Sapre is her best friend rather than her enemy, and Emet has confessed their undying love for her. Maybel steals beautiful golden and gem encrusted jewelry for her from, like, wherever, where Myia keeps it all in a treasury akin to the Cave of Wonders. Carmine is her butler and follows her every word.

Other roles characters might assume in this world: Myia needs loyal subjects to worship the ground she walks on and foragers to??? kill plant people for her to feast on. Can you fucking believe Myia is not an antagonist in her story jesus fuck

Alsoooooooo anyone getting in on this has the option to be not human, if you are. In other words some kind of animal, mammalian or otherwise. You can be a weird mermaid or something and be a fish, it'll be great. This includes plants so like get weird with it.

Examples:
1 (from left to right, top to bottom: fruit fly, namaqua rain frog, crow, venus flytrap, flesh fly)
2 (better view of the frog)
3 (better view of the venus flytrap)
4 (red paper wasp)

Potential discrepancies others may pick up: Yeah there is no way anyone could possibly look at this world where everyone worships and loves Myia the stinkbug and be like, "Yeah, that seems normal." It's eerie how everyone just goes along with what she says, even as she insults people??? She'll call Carmine hideous and Carmine will just be like "sounds fair, good judgment queen myia". Basically the glaring weak point in this is Myia's awful personality horribly clashing with the dream world.

Also, if your character has been transformed for the dream, this might cause?? confusion. Was I always a weird bug? Similarly, if a human character slips through unaltered, Myia will be like "wtf" because she's a big speciesist. About this species she just discovered recently. Rude.

Character name: Shion
Character canon: No.6
Briefly explain what their ideal world is like - how has it changed? Shion's world involves a lot of country side and plants. There is an ocean and expansive forests, a meadow and a city. The city is quite large and at a high level of technology but seems to be in harmony with all the nature. There are a lot of libraries. Like a unreasonable amount of libraries. And everyone living there is content with the fact that no one is controling them. They are in this world of their own choice, no one made them come here, there are no gods, no one that can control their thoughts, actions or bodies. There's pleanty of food and everyone lives in equilibrium with each other, no one is higher than anyone else and everyone helps each other. There are a lot of animals, cats, dogs, mice and they are everywhere but they are not strays as such, they are just... communal pets. Everyone looks after them.

Briefly explain your character's role in this world: Shion is married to Rat and they live in a house that is full of books, they both work at one of the many libraries and Rat is happy and at peace. Shion's mum lives in the city too, Safu is alive and planning a marriage. Her grandma lives nearby. Dog keeper lives in some kind of dog palace that is always warm. Aster lives there having solved all her own worlds issues and is dating Yu and they are super happy. Reno and Elena live there, same with Diarmuid and Waver (again after retiring from sorting out Waver's world), Xue'Kol and sweet thang as do other people Shion knows both from the tower and the islands. They have all chosen to come to this world after resolving things in their own worlds. Shion is really happy and at peace. He is just... getting on with life and being around all his friends and family and basking in the fact that nothing bad will ever happen to them here

Other roles characters might assume in this world: Anyone can live here! People that will definitely crop up are those who Shion knows or assumes have rubbish home worlds/deserve better. So Connor, Tim, Seto and Ren, Dagger. I'm probably forgetting people but literally Shion's perfect world is some safe haven for lost souls so anything goes!

Potential discrepancies others may pick up: The most obvious one is how much this world does not make sense. How did they get there? How is the tech level so high but there seems to be no negative effects like polution etc? Where did the technology come from anyways? Is there a government? What about law control? Apparantly everyone just behaves themselves on some kind of honour basis that is not really realistic.

A lot of the details are vague, non specific people like Safu's boyfriend are very... generic. No actual traits at all past they are all really nice

Rat's eyes have no defined colour, most the time you can't look into his eyes at all, your mind automatically fixes somewhere else

None of the No.6 canon people (Rat, Karen-mum, Dogkeeper, Safu) will recognise any of Shion's extended friends and family including his sister Aster and his adopted dad and adopted step-mum Reno and Elena despite Shion and Rat being married and everyone having lived here for a while

Anyone who visits Aster's world and Shion's world will get some serious de-ja-vu in characters. Some will be different but many will be the same despite their worlds being different

Edited 2018-05-13 10:59 (UTC)

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