Glamour Failure

[animusmods]

Characters: any
Setting: all around the Tower
Format: any/party-style
Summary: A general mingle log for the reaction to the beginning of the Idealism event.
Warnings: PG-13; please include any more detailed warnings in your threads if necessary

Comments

Open | Warning for: Swearing, body horror, talk of character death, murder, and oh yeah swearing.

[turntechtrainer]

[Sleep just doesn't come all that often for Dave. He didn't care for it. All that waited for him when he shut his eyes was a red path traced by his sword as he cleaved through flesh and bone. The screams of thousands being murdered at once and space cracking would come next and he'd stare at his smirking blood-splattered visage. He'd jerk awake, and go wash his hands until they nearly turned red.

Every time.

It never changed.

Until tonight. The lights shut off and everything is plunged into darkness. Dave draws his sword, ready to defend himself from whatever the tower is about to unleash, when the voice rings out.] Glamour system?

[The countdown is as loud as thunder in his head. Dread makes acid coat the back of his tongue but he doesn't move.

Click.

Red radiance that he's so used to being a sign that he's calling to time, manipulating the seconds to do what needs to be done, shatter his reality. He stares at the film that coats the harsh metal that is the real walls, and follows the electricity as it dances down through the substance with his eyes.

That's when he gets an eyeful of what he really looks like behind the glamour. The wires vaguely create the shape he knows because he sees it every day in the mirror.

Only.

That was never true since he woke up in the tower. Was it?

His attention travels down to the sword in his hand. It isn't real. Just a construct.

He continues to study himself and finally gets a glimpse of the glimmering ball at his center, the real him.

This version of him.

Alpha, doomed, Godtier, there never was a difference between us. I was just the one that survived until now. The echo of his voice...no, the real Dave's voice echoes in his mind. He tips his head back and just laughs.

There's no joy in it. There's nothing broken in the noise, but all the same it's like it tore out of him. He puts a hand over his face and fff, he can see through it. He lets it fall. But the laughter doesn't end.

Because nothing matters.]

[ghostytrainer]

[Trying to find a specific someone in a sea of mostly indistinguishable, vaguely human figures is ridiculously impossible. John had been in bed when the announcement crackled over the loudspeakers. He'd been waiting on Rose and fallen asleep before she made it back to the room, apparently. And in light of what had just happened, he had to find her. And Dave. And the other John and the other Dave and everybody else and damn this was going to be hard.]

[But a laugh coming from an indigo figure catches his attention. It's the kind of laugh that John would never want to hear, especially from the person he's 99% sure is his best friend. This is not an okay laugh.]

[It's broken and terrible and it would make John's skin crawl if he actually had any skin.]

Dave? Is that you? [A blue figure approaches, speaking in a familiar voice.] It's John. Pokémon trainer John, if I can even rightly all myself that anymore...

[turntechtrainer]

[Is that you?

He wants to answer with a joke but it feels a bit hollow to do that. So he just falls silent and turns towards the blue figure that sounds like his friend. His lips upturn as if he found something funny.] You can call yourself whatever you want to. Not like they can take that from you.

[His choices, his reactions to things, he's the same as any other Dave. They're just flesh compared to his fluid body and shimmering ball inside. That's one thing he won't deny. He is Dave.

One of the thousands. He can't help but sound tired now. Once again, the whole of things just don't really matter.] Yeah. I'm Dave. The tall fluid pocket one.

[ghostytrainer]

[John laughs.]

I think we're all fluid pockets now, Dave. But Tall Dave, got it. So you're my Dave. Should I be short fluid pocket John to match?

[turntechtrainer]

We are bags filled with mostly fluid. We're like gogurt but a lot less disgusting.

[He stuffs the thing that is supposed to be a sword away and spreads his hands wide.] Welcome to the flip side.

Where everything is all just a dream.

Anyway yeah. Tall Dave works. This explains why polly pocket me is so damn short.

[ghostytrainer]

But since we're souls does that makes us Sou-gurt? How did those commercials go? [A beat as he tries to recall those stupid commercials for nasty tubed yogurt.]

Tower-brand Sou-gurt, it's soul in a tube!!! [Badum-pshhh!]

This is a really shitty dream though. Like, come on Liv Tyler is nowhere to be seen, it automatically fails the first standard of a "good dream".

How does this explain that though? Short Dave, I mean.

[turntechtrainer]

Factory fuck up. Or they got lazy. Oh this looks like the dude it's supposed to be. Good enough. Shit yeah, let's pack it up and traumatize the fuck out of this guy. Just like every other sucker we bag.

[This is awful as hell and he can't stop saying exactly what's on his mind.]

Sou-gurt sounds like some foreign takeout. I refuse to think I belong in a white box with a pair of chopsticks. I'm not greasy. I'm not anything but low, low, no fat something or other.

[tentacletrainer]

[[It had been a long time after the initial meltdown of their 'glamour' that Rose had finally risen to her feet. The loss of her closest companions was both on the front of her mind and the back, tearing at her heart and yet fears clawing at her kept her from dwelling too long. A look in the mirror only amplified those terrors and she'd desperately searched the tower for something - anything - to use to distinguish herself from the rest of the frames. In the end, there was only one thing she could find lying around that was suitable for such an endeavor.

The laughter had her jumping when she'd heard it, after finally satisfying herself to at least some level of sanity. But she recognized the voice and followed it instinctively. And when she found Dave - or the wire frame that was meant to be him - she stopped.

Dave, there is a dark figure staring at you. If you feel like letting her get close, you'll realize that she's dark because she's covered in whatever dust and dirt she could find. The only thing that isn't is the vaguely squiddle shaped violet spot on her chest, where she wiped the dirt away.]]

Dave?

[turntechtrainer]

[He falls silent when she approaches. All sound cutting off as he turns toward whoever it is and just as he's about to make some snarky remark, he stops. It's not even funny that the one person he really didn't want to go through more pain is. He'd seen what the tower did before and now. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.

It takes him a few seconds to reign all of the frustration and rage that had clawed to the surface and poured out of him. He blankets it all in apathy and shuts it behind the poker face. He sighs and steps towards her. Try as he might, the weariness just isn't leaving his voice.] Yeah. It's me.

...stupid question but you ok?

[tentacletrainer]

[[She didn't doubt it was him, just...the laughing was unsettling. She wasn't sure if he was okay but really, in this situation...who would be?

At the question, she shakes her head almost immediately. She hates admitting it, but...she's not. She's not okay.]]

I'm...I'm sure I will be in time though.

[[Her own voice is heavy and she steps forward to take one of his hands, squeezing it with her own.]]

...sorry about the dirt.

[turntechtrainer]

[Dave just, laughs. Like a little dirt is going to bother him now.] Like I care about a bit of dirt. I practically lived in that stuff because man, Bro and cleaning? They were not friends.

Ever.

I don't think he knows what a broom is Rose. I didn't either until you explained the concept. This Dave is a stick with a brush on the end, we use this to push dirt around.

[tentacletrainer]

[[She's quiet for a moment as she listens to him talk, just glad to hear his voice really, but then she smiles. Just a little. Rose didn't really have anything to add to the rambling, content with sitting there and holding his hand. Maybe leaning her head against his shoulder a little.

...but then oh wait.]]

Wh-what about the dust pan? Did I ever tell you about that...?

I feel this is a good time for these two to meet.

[gradosfinest]

[So. Just what the hell do you do when faced with something like this? This is simply so far beyond anything she'd ever experienced that she'd spent the last... oh, probably a good half hour now just sort of wandering around aimlessly, her left hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Not sword. Thing that used to be her sword.

Whatever, it's probably still sharp and it probably still cuts people. Maybe.

But she's trying as hard as she possibly can to not just break under this. Even if nothing else about her is real, even if nothing else about this place is real, she is still real. Right? Does it even count if it's just your soul and nothing else? It's all so confusing, and the only real way to keep herself from snapping is to just focus on how angry she is right now. That the people who run this place would even create something like this. So when her train of thought is derailed by the sound of somebody laughing within earshot, she finally decides to actually react outwardly to this situation.]

THIS IS BULLSHIT! [In the most mature and level-headed way possible, even going as far as to slam her fist into the wall next to her to further prove how collected she is right now. On the bright side she's pretty sure she's not alone, if that impossible to recognize vaguely human-shaped thing over there is actually a person and not a figment of her rapidly degenerating mind.]

oh my god I love her already

[turntechtrainer]

[The slam and the outburst slam Dave out of his downward spiral like a boot to the back of the head. Or a kick in the back. A knife up the-okay, okay, you get the idea. He shuts up and blinks. When he opens his mouth, he picks up where the other person left off without missing a beat.] Nah.

This is Special A, farm fresh, dropped from the cow not even ten minutes ago Bullshit. It's important to emphasize the details of just how fresh this stuff is.

[gradosfinest]

[For a second she just kind of looks at this guy, silently wondering how the hell anybody can joke at a time like this. But considering it actually gets a bit of a grin out of her (not that it's easy to tell right now), she can't really complain.]

Oh yeah, and just to piss us off even further? I'll bet if you really look into it, the bullshit's fake too!

[turntechtrainer]

Are you kidding? They never even programmed it, because that's one more kick to the non-existent groin. [His sanity might be in question but he will be witty to the end. Nothing can take that from him. Though that mouth gets him in more trouble than anyone can imagine. Well, most people.]

We're all eunuches. They're too lazy to make vague shapes to fit that. Nope. One model fits all.

[gradosfinest]

[Ok. Ok, she's got this. Deeeeep breath Amelia, let that all that military experience take over and just calm the fuck down a bit. You've found someone friendly and you're alive, everything else is managable.

Well, no it really isn't but nonetheless.]

I- alright. That might be true and that raises a ton of questions I'm not really about to go looking for the answers to? [Quick say something optimistic!] But I'm sure none of us are eunuches in our souls!

[A beat.]

That was probably one of the stupider things I've ever said in my life.

[tortileghostwriter]

[Several minutes after David's own meltdown a few rooms over, he wanders past Dave's room. Mostly looking to get to the stairs, but...

He heard that laugh. It's his laugh.

And just as broken.]

Too tall to be the other Dave. The Pokemon one, then? I see you've been having a little laugh over the whole fucking demented gag too, hmm?

[His tone is...hurried, a bit tinged with hysteria. he laughs, briefly, but it's just as cold.]

There was no point to the game and there was no point to this.

[turntechtrainer]

[Oh it's the other Dave he's heard about. The one that isn't short and fits in a cupboard. He sounds nuttier than Rose did when she was oozing black stuff and watching him sprout a bunch of pretty little holes. He spreads his hands out.] I wouldn't even call this a gag. They failed that. It's the joke that fell short with tied together shoes and a kick me sign on it's back.

But yeah I'm the Dave that supposedly had a flaming unicorn and some dragons. Dicks. Faking my bros like that. Wow, that's just classy.

[tortileghostwriter]

Finished off by an explanation at the end. The coup de grace for any bad joke.

[he shakes his head, leaning slightly against the wall.]

Surely the most heinous of their acts! [tone is just mocking now, even if he does sympathize.] Do they know no limits?

[turntechtrainer]

What is limits? It must be that funny word that people think means something but they just wave at it like you do at people you know when you're driving by.

[He even makes the little wave motion, because a joke has to have a bit of visual reference. It's a fact.]

Watch them try to cover it up now. Ooops, that was just a glitch, it was all fake. My lack of an ass, it was fake.

[knightime]

[Dave was quick to leave his room. Just to get out of there and maybe try and just...clear his mind? He doesn't know. He left Missy there. Can he still call her such? What do you do in this situation?

But he's wandering, trying to find something. Someone. Something that will maybe make this less overwhelming, even if that probably is too late. A year and some months of this place and it's all been some well fabricated illusion.

He recognizes his own voice laughing and heads towards it. He looks into the room, and he thinks that seeing another him in the same state probably makes this worst than it already was. Like it's kind of looking into a full body mirror but that's not quite it either.] ...Dave?

[turntechtrainer]

[He's lost in his own thoughts. They're a dark spiral that's winding down when a voice breaks through. His laughter, the torn vicious thing that it is, stops. The silence seems louder than the madness and he turns to face the person. He recognizes his smaller counterpart and steps forward. He doesn't say a word, he just pads over to him and leans against the wall.] Yo.

[What is there to say? The last thought of caring about his own well being (as far as he himself contained in his own bag could) had went out the window.]

[knightime]

[You done with your little laugh? Cause that shit was unsettling as fuck. Hearing yourself laugh like that is really fucking weird. Jesus Christ, you'd think you get used to hearing yourself being a Time Kid, but the situation is hells bells different.]

I think you were having a moment. I can wait unless you're really done. Wouldn't want to stop you mid moment. Don't wanna steal your thunder.

[turntechtrainer]

Nah, it passed it. Moment over. [All of his anger and frustration is tucked neatly behind that age old iron door and sealed away inside. Like during the game, or the two years in the ring. Shut it up.

Bro would be ashamed of him if he didn't keep it together. ...It takes seconds to remember Bro apologizing for his involvement in this place and it's nearly enough to make everything come crashing.

d
o
w
n

But he isn't a kid anymore. He lost that somewhere along the line. And he's needed. He puts one foot over the other, looking like he doesn't care about anything.]

Seriously just done with it. Sup. I mean besides the reveal we're all just bags of soul.