seasonsgreetings | Event #7: Knocking on the 4th Wall (Inside the Metaverse)

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!4th wall

Event #7: Knocking on the 4th Wall (Inside the Metaverse)

Knocking on the 4th Wall
LOGS | NETWORK | OOC | MEMES | NAVIGATION

Prelude (Pre 4th Wall)

On March 14th, everyone received a message. The Research Center is ready to try another test to find ways to beat the Darkness. This time the test is not done with the robots that were previously used, but instead everyone who volunteers will be participating in a virtual reality simulator. They're asked to come over to the Center on March 15th.

The researchers will explain that the purpose of this simulation is to see how several fully powered power holders fair against the Darkness. They have gathered enough data on it and the dark energy in general to determine the effects it will have on nature, monsters and wildlife if the barrier is taken off. This is the only safe way to actually test their theories.

After all the necessary explanations, everyone is asked to log in to the metaverse. Anyone logging in may notice that there are a lot of glitches as they enter.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, anyone looking at any kind of a screen (their own device, television, a digital advertisement, etc.) will have their mind sucked into the metaverse, due to the virus residing in the program. Their bodies will be left in a sleep-like state wherever they may be.

Wrong Turn at Albuquerque

The Research Center staff intended for all otherworlders to start near the Research Center so they could get used to the metaverse in peace. There are no natives in the simulator, so testing out powers around the city would have been safe as well. However, because of the glitch, people can appear anywhere, either in the city or anywhere on the segments (save from the one closed off location).

Sometimes the scenery and items in the world glitch a little bit, reminding anyone that this is the metaverse. Except the glitches weren't meant to happen. Luckily they're all mostly aesthetical, but some items may work differently than they should. You have a spoon? It actually works like a fork.

Luckily, this doesn't mean they will be without any items. They can open a menu with the device on their wrist that lets them get anything at all from Riki's Rewards during the simulator without any cost. They can think of this as special opportunity to test out all kinds of items before buying them, as they work exactly the same as they would in normal space.

For some reason, the Shady Shop also appears in the menu. That was not anyone's intention as the items are, well, shady.

Other than the two shops there are basic potion and magical item menus that people can use where needed. Even vehicles, such as airships can be summoned through the menus for easier traveling in the segments.

Some might find the glitches concerning and wish to return and tell the researches about them. The problem with that is is that clicking "Log Off" won't do anything at all, even if it's supposed to boot someone out of the metaverse. But that's not the end of the strange things going on.

You're in the Metaverse Now

Along with the otherworlders that were participating in the test, others start to join in as well due to unforeseen circumstances. Luckily, they have the same "settings" as everyone else, so they're not completely without aid wherever they end up in. They also have all of their powers unlocked for the duration of their stay in the metaverse (including all animal transformations).

As part of the strange glitch going on everyone also has access to any powers from previous worlds, if they have experienced other places before. It would seem the powers can also be shared through the item inventory, should anyone want to temporary use another world's abilities. This is possible with even a person's native powers.

And as if that wasn't enough, people who weren't on Ellipsa start appearing as well. Anyone who doesn't currently have a body on Ellipsa has a mark somewhere on their body, signaling that they're just data. This mark is somehow related to the characters that has it and emits a faint light.

All of the people who are just visiting will also be able to enjoy the metaverse the same way as anyone else. They have been sorted into a Seasons and have access to full powers - and the same item inventory. All that's different from the others is that they have no physical body to return to in this world.

Communication is the key

During the metaverse adventures, people are able to communicate through their devices, but the messages will not go out to the "normal" network. So the messages are only between those in the metaverse, but at least the network works the same way as it would in the "normal world".

Happy communicating.

It's Getting Dark, Too Dark to See

The goal of the metaverse is to have a safe environment to test powers against the Darkness. All of the barriers have been taken out, except for the one surrounding the city of Nightwake. The city acts as a safe haven to anyone who needs a break or doesn't want to fight.

Everyone is encouraged to go to where the barriers used to be and use their full, unlocked powers against everything and anything the darkness throws at them to see how well they can fight against it.

Thanks to all powers being unlocked, destroying enemies powered up by the Darkness is a lot easier, but pushing back the approaching darkness still needs something more than just raw power. Though with enough power holders of different seasons working together and ~~crossing the different seasonal element streams~~ fusing together different elements from each season in a single attack, it's possible to halt the advance, much like a barrier would, for 24 hours.

Due to the barriers being off, all creatures are stronger due to the Darkness's influence. Even creatures that normally have no danger level can now at least do Dark damage. Some Slime especially may seek vengeance.

Unfortunately, due to the weird glitch in the system, everyone inside the metaverse is able to feel pain when they originally weren't supposed to, to make the experience safe. It feels very real, and there's a chance any non-lethal wounds will appear on the person's real body.

Effects of "The Darkness"

The Darkness is slowly expanding from all sides. Very slowly, at a snail's pace. Everything it touches turns into black sand, before transforming into something different. Some may even recognize the things that rise from the sand, as they're monsters, fauna or people from their own world, made into more twisted forms. They may even be creatures from a popular media from back home... or at least, someone's home (players').

If a Power Holder walks into the Darkness, they won't immediately turn into anything. Instead the transformation is slow and painful. Leaving the area will stop the transformation, but any damage already done remains. If the person changes completely, they might lose their sense of self completely and attack anything in their sights.

What they turn into depends on the individual (player's choice) and the only way to reverse the changes is to die. Luckily that isn't permanent even in the metaverse. The person just gets booted out, but can re-enter anytime they want to (or in this case; is forced to). This was told to anyone before entering the program, so they could go all out and test limits as much as they want.

Wait... Did I Save?

A screen appears either when someone dies or gets forcefully booted out of the metaverse. It has two options: Remember or Forget.

Clicking "Remember" will automatically save everything that happened into a person's memory and proceed to boot them out. Clicking "Forget" will lead the person to a series of "Are you Sure" pop up windows. As the very last resort, the window suggests an option to only partially forget events that transpired in the metaverse. Choosing to still forget everything will make the person wake up from a long, dreamless sleep. The memories erased cannot be found later on, as they have been completely erased from their metaverse-selves. Even someone telling them what happened won't sound familiar.

This option is also available for any visitors during the time they're visiting. Whenever they die they get booted out and can be immediately returned to the metaverse (by the power of players) with or without their memories, depending on what they chose.

Of course, anyone can then tell the person about the very crazy stunts they made the last time they were in the metaverse. They could be complete lies, but they wouldn't have any solid proof, other than "I would never do that".

Time to Say Goodbye

Finally, on March 31st, a message comes from the outside. It's telling everyone stuck in the metaverse that they can finally leave out of their own will and stay out this time. People can then choose to leave immediately be pressing by pressing the "Log Off" button on their screen or take a moment to say goodbye to the temporary visitors of the metaverse.

The screen asking if someone wants to "Remember" or "Forget" appears, once again. This time the Forget option is even more insistent on asking if the person is sure about their choice, especially since the memories that are erased can't be taken back later.

Once everyone who exists on Ellipsa has returned to their bodies, the metaverse will be shut down. All visitors have been booted out and returned to where they came.

OOC TIPS

• Ask 4th Wall related questions here. Read the 4th wall FAQ before asking them.

• You don't need to comment on the plotting post to participate & anyone can participate in the 4th wall (there's no separate invitation needed). However, if you wish to app in later, you need an invite if you're not a friend of the mods.

• This post is open to tag and top-level by everyone! Those arriving for the 4th wall can write 4TH WALL or VISITOR on their post and/or link their top level here!

• Check the Opt-in top-level if you're considering bringing in a character that already exists in the game.

• Smut is not allowed on the event post, so if your thread is heading that way, please move it to a separate entry (like to your musebox or characters' journal).

• Remember to content and spoiler warn as necessary!

• Reminder to players in the game that this month is Activity Check-in month and check-in ends on March 31th, at 23:59 PST.

code bases by tricklet

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Everyone gets so mad when he says owner!!!]

Like I said, I am a shadow. I ain't being metaphorical.

....shadow magic isn't something many use. The Sheikah did, supposedly, but if any are around, they didn't make themselves known.

That could be it. If yer charming shadows regularly, I ain't above feeling that kind of instinctual pull. As existing, no one orders me around.

Edited 2024-03-22 23:46 (UTC)

I can feel that, yes.

I have no intention of trying to order you around. For one, she'd be pissed. For another, I can make my own shadow clones for whatever I need. I would only mess with you if you gave me a reason to, and with our mutual care for Choco -- that's what she goes by these days, Choco Korone -- it would have to be a very good reason.

I can't speak to any charming effect. If there is one, it's not intentional. I can control shadows but it's an active process, I normally have to do it on purpose.

[He shrugs, though there is a slight edge of there being an Air to it casualness.] And you couldn't anyway. I'm not bound to the rules like most shadows. Anomaly and all that. Only thing I couldn't break on my own was being attached to my owner, but dimensional magic has changed that.

Shadows have things that they like. Positive emotions are rare, but there is always like. Like and....let's say devotion. You get some shadows to listen, then it would mean her likable to 'em.

[ Macaque finds himself idly wondering if he could do that if he tried. He won't, but purely as a thought exercise. ]

I haven't experienced it as devotion, but I've only ever been on this side of it. I've never doubted that the shadows could turn on me if I misused them, so I have taken care not to. [ Shadows were his first real support, friends one might say. He always treated them with respect accordingly. ]

[The consequences would be quite bad regardless.]

Yer not a shadow. Yer a full person with the full range of emotion naturally. Shadows are generally very....base in how they exist. They know what they like and what they don't. They take on the things their owners hide. But they can bear it because unlike their owners, they can simply be those things without them getting over complicated.

It's why a lot can take the usual ignoring. Not always, but most do.

But ya take care of them?

[ This heavy pause brought to you by a very recent heart game. ]

Shadows were the first things that accepted me. Since, as you pointed out, and you don't know the half of it, I'm not a normal monkey. They took care of me when no one else would.

So yes, I take care of them in return. Or I try to. They're not some tool to me, although they do answer my call... it's more intimate than that. And that word even feels a little inadequate, but it's what I've got at hand that fits best. It's a unique sort of bond that isn't so easily described.

[Lott puts his chin in his hand, studying Macaque a few moments. Then his eyes drift down, the color vanishing from them, leaving just white behind as he looks at the shadows around him.]

Even a shadow whose become bitter and hateful to their owner, the sort of shadows evil beings like to use in dark magic assassination attempts, still feel devotion. They cannot deny the want to be close. Even if that close is a blade to the heart.

To be seen.

All shadows want to be seen and if you can make a shadow feel it, they will give that devotion to you too.

There is no word for it. Love is closest.

[ The shadows around Macaque are close to him in a way that defies visual appearance, attentive and waiting. Devoted is indeed the word. They call to each other even when Macaque isn't using them directly. It is a mutual devotion however, nothing one-sided. Lott will probably also see Macaque's huge avatar, or echoes of it, and the power behind that which the shadows lend him. ]

I suppose it is closest. [ He won't argue the point. ]

[ Macaque creates a clone out of one of the nearby shadows and it rises off the floor in front of Lott, it's purple glowing eyes looking him over with curiosity. Not a trace of threat or animosity. As Macaque said, like calls to like. A few more clones peek over from various points around the room, not getting too close. Just observing, listening. ]

[Shadows are powerful things, when given the chance to shine. Lott knows that better than most. The Dark Mirror allowed him to exist in the World of Light, but where as Vaati was given power from it, Lott was left to stand on his own. Not even offered power in a last ditch effort to stop is owners.]

[He had caused a lot of damage with his own hand.]

[He glances around at the clones and then there is a snicker. There is no sound though, just the motions of it, blackness covering his form. He waves his fingers teasingly at the shadows. Why are they so shy?]

[ They're not shy, they're waiting for Macaque's command. And Macaque wants to make sure it's clear that he's not making a threat of any kind, plus there's Choco's state of mind to consider, so he's being overly cautious. ]

[ The shadows smile with glowing purple grins, and approach Lott, hands raised. They want to touch, but only if it's okay. ]

[Shadow figures, but also, he's a tease.]

[Shadow extends his free hand because he's not letting go of Korone's. This physical and body language are a lot more clear than sounds and it's good to check the shadows truly are happy with Macaque's attention. If they're happy in general.]

[ The shadows converge and their hands overlap to make darker shadows right where their palm reaches out to touch Lott. He will get the impression of them feeling safe and protected. Macaque treats them both like part of himself and with the respect one would show someone they care deeply about. He would never hurt them. (Sometimes they help him lash out when he's in pain, but that's not manipulation on Macaque's part, it's that the protectiveness is mutual.) ]

Do I pass? [ Macaque sounds amused, and looks it. ]

[Hey, sometimes being a shadow means lashing out. Lott would absolutely go on a warpath if Link had asked. Really, a lot of things would have been a lot easier if Vio had figured out what Shadow had wanted earlier.]

[What matters to Lott is how much care there is, regardless of how HEALTHY that care actually is in practice.]

[His expression is lost in the darkness as he makes contact with the shadows, sees how easy it is to reach out, the ease there is, and its especially apparent with Macaque curled up around Korone. There is no envy or a held back want. Shadows who feel seen.]

[There is no expression, but there is a shift in his shoulders, an easing of tension, the previously still shadows of the area flickering and shifting closer.]

[A shift and there is a gap of a mouth.] Ya do.

Good, that makes things easier all around.

[ The shadows turn from Macaque-clones into wisps which whirl around Lott playfully. Macaque is more or less letting them go as they like for the moment. ]

Have you always been different than other shadows, or did it happen one day?

[He does a hand waggle gesture, the edges of his form reacting to the wisps. The tail of his hat, the sides of his clothes, his hair, all of that responding in kind.]

My first clear memory is four, five years ago? Everything before that is hazy, but I dunno if I was always smarter or making decisions. It took time for stuff to build up even after I started clearly remembering.

[ The shadows spin around a couple more times before settling, smiling at Lott, and sinking back into their natural places in the room. ]

Huh. Interesting. I don't really know what made my shadows react to me either, one day it just happened. It was possibly that my natural magical capacity was given a clear target.

Could be. Hard to say why I'm different. The two theories I got is 'cause my owner is probably a reincarnating hero and so his shadows gets turned into an assassin a lot. Magic sticks around, builds up after enough lives where independent actions turns into independence itself.

Or its 'cause he's a reincarnating hero with a reincarnating princess whose one of the most powerful sources of light in Hyrule and there's something to that whole the brighter the light, the darker the shadow, and that just started doing stuff. Out of most of the hero stories, my owner would be one of the ones closest to the princess. Usually the hero comes from somewhere else, but we grew up with her.

There's definitely some connection to light sources that makes shadows deeper. In my experience, strong feelings can make that light source stronger, and the shadows respond accordingly, whatever that means at the time.

When did you first act on your own? In my experience my shadows called to me at a time of great need.

Oh, there's definitely an aspect of feelings. Shadows for things that ain't alive are one things, but the personal shadows? They're all the hidden things, including the feelings people don't want to expose to others. Same token, the light gets fueled with all the feelings ya throw out there.

First action?

...couple of months before I met her. [He nods his head to Delphi.] I'd been thinking on my own, observing, taking in information my owner wasn't so good at, but I didn't really think about moving on my own until then.

[When Ganon recruited him and said he could.]

...When you say owner, you mean the person who cast you. The one whose solid form made you as a shadow possible. Correct?

I've never thought about my shadows being anything owned, so the terminology is a bit odd, is all.

Yes, that's my owner. [Colors return to him and then they shift. First to a boy with a green tunic, and blonde hair, eyes a darker blue. Then a slight shift to his form. Still the seeming same boy, but there's something different in his eyes and expression, the way he holds himself. Then to a blue tunic, to a red tunic, to a purple tunic, each time, something subtly different to the forms where it could be the same boy, but somehow...maybe also different?]

[Then he's back to his own default coloring.] Shadows don't have words. I learned to talk by copying the motions that humans do while talking. [Its also why he has a drawl.] So concepts for how it means to exist as a shadow don't really have a lot of words. I'm the one who has to figure out the description, and there isn't really a better word than owner that I can think of.

Pack isn't a bad one. At least as the way Giovanni described it. Massacre understood the concept of having an owner, but she also didn't really have a specific word beyond the description of feelings.

[ Macaque makes note of the different forms. They represent different incarnations, probably. ]

You don't see yourself as your own person now? No judgment, I'm just curious. Most people have an aversion to thinking of someone as "owned" by someone else, but if that's the word you prefer, then it is.

[Oh if only it was so simple.]

[But honestly, he gets asked that question and Lott just]

[Stares at him.]

[He opens his mouth and closes it.]

I...don't know?

Didn't really think about it back home. [He had been going crazy with Link never acknowledging him and then he got enabled to get his attention in the Worst Way Possible when he had freedom.] And in the Forest, most of my memories just remained as markings. For the most part, all I remembered was history stuff, that I was some kind of shadow thing that wasn't from the world of light, and a conversation I had with Vio. It wasn't until the end that I actually knew what I specifically was. Not even Lyric or Princess could tell me 'cause they were different incarnations and I probably wasn't really in history books.

[ Korone's spent this time gathering herself back together. Slowly. She's allowed to take her time. It's safe here, with her hand in Lott's and Macaque's arms tight around her. Anything that got past Donnie's security systems wouldn't last long against either one of them, let alone both. She's safe. She's safe.

She builds up her mental walls painstakingly, little by little, just like she'd sometimes had to do in the Forest. It wasn't a trick to rely upon often, for several reasons, but sometimes … sometimes everything just got to be way, way too much. Sometimes she just had to. It'll do until Donnie comes home. Donnie. Because Macaque is holding her, and her name is Choco Korone, and that means she's in Ellipsa, not the Forest. She's in Ellipsa, not the Forest. Her name is Choco Korone, she's in her house in the Sunwaning district of Nightwake city, Ellipsa, in the arms of her adopted father, Macaque, and she's holding hands with Lott. Who is … also … in Ellipsa(n … Metaverse …) …

Mrrr.

When the shield does fall, it's … gentle, thanks to the wall she'd built. Even the wall itself is gentle in its own way, allowing Korone and Lott to see the broad strokes of each other's feelings from a distance instead of them being all up on top of each other. She makes a little sound, achingly soft, somewhere between a grumble and a cooing purr, and squeezes Lott's hand twice, gently but unmistakably deliberate. A wordless, "Hi, I'm here," and a "You guys can keep chatting though." ]

[ Macaque listens to Lott, but he's distracted by Choco's mild stirring as well, the soft sounds she makes against him, watching her hand squeeze Lott's. It relieves him beyond measure that she's feeling safe enough to come around. ]

[ He smoothly continues the discussion, waiting patiently for her. ]

It's not something you need to come to a decision about right away. But you might get asked about the word, and that's why. By the same token, what other people think about the word 'owner' doesn't mean you have to change the way you think about or talk about it.

Event #7: Knocking on the 4th Wall (Inside the Metaverse)

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