Universal Remote [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Here's an interesting scene: the dreamers of Manhattan are on a pirate ship. Or perhaps they're standing in a busy ER, wearing scrubs and holding a scalpel they may or may not know how to use. Or perhaps they've found themselves in the middle of a world cup championship game, or an old-fashioned highway robbery, or an interstellar dogfight, or a dramatic, 'unscripted' showdown between arguably attractive people they've never seen before in their lives.

Whatever the situation, rest assured: it probably won't last long.

Maybe the Rift is bored. That might explain why the dream keeps changing, as if someone were idly flicking through the channels and switching up the genre. The poor dreamers are just along for the ride, the only constant amidst a shifting array of scenery, clothing, and overall mood. Perhaps, if things are sufficiently interesting, the dream might settle a little to see how things play out. But given the Rift's definition of 'interesting,' that might not be a good thing for whoever is providing the entertainment.

[OOC: the usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Dreamers' clothes may change to reflect whatever scene they're in, but their memories and personalities will remain intact... though the overall mood of the setting might influence their mood, as well. Feel free to throw NPCs into whatever scene you find yourself in, with bonus points added if said characters treat the dreamers as if they're established parts of the 'canon.']

Comments

[biscuit_powered]

The air is thin and cold at the turret of this weather-beaten castle, which sits at a dizzying height atop a mountain pass. The sounds of infantry fighting below have ended, the enemy's forces either killed our routed, but up here the open air crackles with the dark magic that keeps three of the figures on the rooftop ensnared. The fourth figure gloats as the life force drains from the fiend on one side and the haloed woman on the other into the winged child at the center of the ritual. The mage responsible is speaking to the half-angel. "My minions are making short work of your friends as we speak," he gloats. "In just a few moments --"

The sound of beating wings interrupts him, and all four turn to look on in incredulity as a tyrannosaurus rex laboriously hauls itself upward through the air on undersized wings that sprout from its shoulders, a gaggle of bruised and bloodied adventurers clinging to its back. The half-angel on the roof bursts into whoops of triumphant laughter as the man nearest the front of the dinosaur climbs to his feet, a rifle in his hand, and takes a running leap up the t-rex's spine to spring from its nose. Time seems to slow as he hauls back his arm to throw the rifle in midair, the half-angel outstretching her hand as the weapon hurtles end over end toward her --

[CLICK-BZZT]

And then Asmodia is very abruptly not clinging to the tyrannosaur's hips, and she's not watching her friends locked in mortal combat and trying to work up the courage to follow Stig's lead now that her flight spell has worn off and she has rather a long way to fall if she misses the jump.

She is, in fact, sitting on the end of a rather comfortable couch under a glaring array of lights. Ahead of her is a mob -- no, a crowd sitting in relative dark, all staring at her as they guffaw and applaud. Tensing, she looks around quickly to discover a small, currently silent musical band off to one side of the -- stage, it's a stage she's on -- and beside her a desk with a person on it, looking little less bewildered than herself. She leaps to her feet, hands raised in readiness and teeth bared as she demands of the world in general, "What in the abyss is happening here?!"

[andhiswife]

"... And this is where we add the blueberries," Greta explains as she upends the little bowl of fruit into the batter. Narrating her baking is a new habit, intended more to teach Lilly new words than to actually teach her how to make anything. Half the time, the child gets bored or distracted midway through the process and stops paying any particular attention. But Greta figures some part of her is still listening, so it can't hurt to keep talking.

"Then we give this a stir, and..." Greta glances over to see if Lilly's actively listening, and stills mid-stir when she realizes the child isn't even there. Neither is the rest of her living room, for that matter. She lifts her head, squinting against the lights - and where did they come from? - and into the large, dark space beyond, which is... oh, goodness, it's filled with people. And they're all just staring at her!

The spoon clacks against the rim of the mixing bowl as Greta gapes out at the crowd: dozens, if not hundreds, of people sitting in neat rows and watching her attentively. A few of the ones in the frontmost rows are beginning to look confused. And there are three or four great, boxy contraptions aimed her way, each operated by a bored-looking individual - the only people not staring at her.

What on earth is happening to her? Where's her apartment? Where's Lilly?

"Um." Greta takes a step back from the counter, hands raised in supplication and general defense. "I, um."

"Make the muffins!" shouts a male voice from the crowd. She's not sure if it's intended to be a jeer or actual encouragement, but she suspects the former and narrows her eyes accordingly. She might not know what's going on, but she's certain she didn't volunteer to bake in front of this lot.

"No," she says, feeling absurd, hands moving to smooth her skirt and finding a pair of jeans, instead. What is she wearing? She spares an incredulous glance for her clothing, then raises her chin, her cheeks prickling with embarrassment. "I don't want to."

There are general murmurs of discontent from the crowd, and she takes another step backwards, fetching up against the fridge. This is bad. Whatever it is, it is undoubtedly very bad.

[wildmage_daine]

Now, this is a nice dream. The sun overhead is nice and hot compared to the autumnal chill starting to settle over Manhattan, and Daine's surrounded by a warm sense of family. It's a bit like Pack-feeling, but not quite the same. These aren't predators, and most are too big to be prey.

"I know," Daine says cheerfully as a very young elephant curls its trunk around her comparative nubbin of a nose. "I've no trunk at all." The elephant expresses bewilderment and sympathy at that, and Daine lifts a hand to scratch behind its ear. "That's what two-leggers have hands for," she explains in a conspiratorial hush, "to make up for our little noses."

The baby elephant is midway through a dubious exploration of her fingers when Daine hears a sound that doesn't belong out here at all. It's faint, but unmistakably mechanical. She twists around to look for the source, and her jaw drops when she finally spots it. It appears, at first glance, as if a pile of droppings has decided to take itself for a walk. But then it rotates, and the wink of a glass lens appears. It's some sort of camera. And it's pointed right at them!

"What in Mithros' name..." Daine mutters, getting to her feet and taking a few cautious steps toward the thing. It stills, as if startled, and Daine glances back at the nearest adult elephant. Have you seen this before?

The elephant waves its trunk in the equivalent of a shrug. It's harmless.

Is it? It's a two-legger thing, Daine says - warns, really, because humans are about the only predators elephants really have to worry about. It doesn't look like a weapon, but what else could it be for? Are folk just spying on the elephants with these?

Daine drops to her hands and knees and peers into the lens with a tight frown. "What's this about, then?" she asks, giving the false casing a light rap with one of her knuckles. "Who do you belong to?"

tw: car accidents and blood

[peacefulexplorer]

He's driving.

That's the first thing he discovers.

The next is the fact that someone is perched on the passenger seat and grinding the nozzel of a gun into his temple.

"Keep drivin'," pants the nameless, angry, very much armed man, one of his eyes screwed shut and half of his face red, blood painted slick and dark. "You get us outta the woods, you got that? You're drivin', that makes you an accomplice. Their blood's on your hands."

"Um," says Daniel, now more than vaguely concerned over his sense of personal dissonance and confusion over what's happening.

"Left," says the other man.

"What?"

"Left!"

Daniel's head snaps to the road a fraction of a second too late. Horns blare, headlights blur into lateral streaks across his vision, and the unmistakable jarring crunch of one car impacting another launches him directly into the windshield - no, through the windshield, which doesn't hurt nearly as much as he'd expect it to.

Daniel shuts his eyes against the pinwheeling glass, his stomach in knots. When he straightens, the scene of the crash is splayed out under a glare of red and blue. The door to the nearest police car opens with a soft clunk, heralding the arrival of a mustachioed cop, who promptly claps Daniel on the shoulder.

"Good work, detective," he says solemnly.

"Um," says Daniel, completely at a loss.

[lottawork]

"Fuck off," snarls Rush, divesting himself of blue gloves and white coat and depositing them in a disordered cairn of insufferable spotlessness upon the floor.

"Doctor," says the woman opposite him, arms folded, sharp blue eyes disconcertingly similar to those of Chloe Armstrong's, which is not a requisite or particularly useful association, and so he dismisses it on principle. "We need your expertise. The virus is spreading. Already, over fifty percent of Earth's population is - "

"Shite," says Rush, one side of his mouth curving downward in crisp distaste. "Pure shite. That is not biology. That's not even basic statistical analysis. You can take your lack of a control group and lack of fundamental, requisite safety protocols, and fuck off."

He pivots neatly on one heel and opens the door that will remove him from the vicinity of this unbearably, hopelessly inaccurate facsimile of a laboratory, presumably designed by some creativity-deficient architect who has only heard of laboratories by rough description, and comes face-to-immediate-face with a slavering, snapping, decaying gray thing of vaguely humanoid construction.

"No," Rush tells it firmly, and closes the door and braces his forehead against it and closes his eyes and this is, by his estimation, a dream or some otherwise manufactured event, and he could be wrong about that estimation but he doubts it.

He pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and sighs.

"Doctor," says the woman again, her tone barely shy of petulant in its insistence.

He ignores her.

He will not be participating in some poorly-defined, poorly-conceived, poorly-executed display of pseudoscientific pursuits. He will be waking up. Very shortly, he will be waking up. He is certain. He will not accept any other outcome.

[singthesong]

The victim was found lying face-down in his home, in a pool of his own blood. The medical examiner says he probably got shot sometime last night. They're still looking him over, not quite ready to take him back to the morgue just yet. A uniformed officer is crouching nearby, camera in hand, documenting the crime scene.

"It was his girlfriend."

She looks up at her partner's words. He's leaning over her to look at the body, but even as he speaks he turns away from it again. Not to make any actual effort at investigating; he just wanders over to look at the fancy knick-knacks on the mantle, one hand fiddling with the tools at his belt as he does. "She found out he was cheating on her. With - oooh, wow, multiple people." He tsks, shaking his head. "Not that it's any better because of that. Can you take this?"

He offers her his gun, still dangling in its holster. She gapes first at it, then at him. "You can't possibly know that. We've only been here for ten minutes."

"Have we?" He smiles politely and sets the gun down on the victim's sofa. "I'm just saying, it was her. Did you want a song and dance?" Somehow, the question isn't at all sarcastic.

"Your gut instinct isn't admissible in court - wait, where are you going?" She stands and scoops the holster off the couch as he starts to leave. "We've got a job to do! And you can't just leave your gun lying around!"

"I solved it!" he calls back, throwing up his arms as he saunters out the front door. "Episode's over!"

[shynotstupid]

"I arrest you," Beka declares exhausted as she ties the thief's hands together, "in the King's name." Around her people burst into cheers and the young woman looks up like a startled deer. Turning back to her quarry, she finds that even the young man covered in the filth of the lower city is clapping, using every bit of space afforded by his binds. 'Bloodhound,' they all cheer, 'bloodhound!'

Beka turns a pasty shade of white. In that moment she realizes she's wearing only a breastband and loincloth.

Please feel free to kill her now.