OPEN: contractual obligations

[triangleman]

welcome to the m i n d s c a p e 1; you have, for whatever illadvised reason, decided to speak the words and summon the beast. way to go, you've managed to conjure a snappily dressed example of manic geometry. what did you want out of this, anyway? you're going to have to make a deal. 2; the collective unconscious is actually a fairly convenient psychic superhighway. it can be easy to get lost chasing memories or marvelling at neuroses: especially when the damned are dreaming. what's with that one about the carnival games staffed by all your exes? 3; players choice. pick your poison! literally, if you're up for it.

Comments

HI............................. (2)

[foreshadower]

Unconsciousness isn't always the same for everyone -- in fact, for some, it's more of a black mire -- even though it's more rare than a clear day in the middle of Los Angeles. It's pitch, and thick, like long streaks and swaths of tar that run up and down over everything. Everything cackles with the sound of beasts with wide maws and sharp eyes. And there is, of course, the occasional skittering, scurrying spider, wearing a top hat. Because one must always be fashionable.

But that's the surface, the first veneer of the mind, even deeper is where things become muted and odd. Memories mesh, so it's a bar, the old-west sort, despite it not being at all in the Old West, and instead in his hometown of Opal City, and they serve the finest absinthe, and there are women in petticoats and fine lace chatting with men who came off the ranch -- and was there a blue man, doing the disco?

He expected himself to be chatting with the sheriff, but instead it was something else. Something with another man's lips and names, speaking about some new device, or was it a book? He wasn't paying attention, and nor did he jump, whenever the barmaid made her way over, her face that of an old love -- Mauguerite Ludlow -- but when she spoke, she spat pitch, and her dress was always stained with more, puncture wounds from being impaled multiple times with inky blades.

HELLO I'M SORRY TO MEET AGAIN LIKE THIS

[triangleman]

"Whooooooweeee, what a blast from the past!"

He's a jarring aberration, almost seeming to pop out of the fabric of reality, hovering above the bar. Saturated and glowing, he looks like a tacky neon sign in a dive, which is especially odd because those haven't been invented yet.

"Somebody's feeling awfully nostalgic. This place looks like an old sepia photograph!"

I'M NOT

[foreshadower]

He starts, but that's it. Like a reminder of reality that ever-presses in the memories of a man who's half out of time, and half meant to be right in the middle of it. He even turns, slightly, although his squint, apparent even behind the sunglasses, is obvious.

"Nostalgia is one way to put it, yes," he hedged. Nostalgic by a lot but it didn't seem to surprise him -- it. The thing that glowed brighter than even the brightest of the new, but very weak light fixtures they'd just installed. How odd.

"But you are certainly not a part of that. Curious, then, that you'd show up here. Are you looking for halcyon days too?"

[triangleman]

"No thanks, I get enough salt in my diet." He responds instantly, twirling his cane. "I'm just passing through, don't worry. You probably won't even remember this conversation. Seems like you've got plenty of other things on your mind, so to speak."

[foreshadower]

"Perhaps, but I'm not adverse to remembering it, either," he said simply, and tipped his head. His tophat maybe not a perfect match, but a thematic match. "What's your destination, then?"

it three also its in the nebulous ethereal conceptspace you get me

[whocouldwinarabbit]

WE STILL ON FOR MOVIE NIGHT SUNDAY?

DOUBLE HEADER THIS TIME.

i get you.

[triangleman]

You've got a movie about a monster with two heads? What's so scary about that?

[whocouldwinarabbit]

HA-HA. HEE-LARIOUS.

WE'RE WATCHING FRIDAY THE 13TH AND NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET AND YOU'RE GOING TO DAMN WELL LIKE IT. YOU'RE LUCKY I JUST REWATCHED GRINDHOUSE.

[triangleman]

Yuh oh. This sounds suspiciously like the preparatory work that comes before you pull out one of those movie discs with a big ol' "VS" in the middle of the title.

[whocouldwinarabbit]

WE'RE NOT WATCHING FREDDY VS JASON AGAIN. NOT YET. GIVE ME A MONTH.

[triangleman]

Was that the one where the guy got rolled up and smoked like an old Disney cartoon?

[whocouldwinarabbit]

[fake-touched:]

YOU REMEMBER.

[triangleman]

I remember everything, death proof.

[whocouldwinarabbit]

SHOULDN'T MY CUTE LITTLE ICONIC NICKNAME BE HAUNTER? THE WORDS ON MY HAT SEEM A LITTLE ON THE NOSE.

[triangleman]

What, and 'haunter' isn't?

[whocouldwinarabbit]

IT'S A POKEMON. YOU KNOW, LIKE WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE.

[triangleman]

I know. I'm just saying that you can't really go about complaining that my name is too revealing when YOUR suggestions aren't any better.

Is that the best you've got? A Pokemon comparison?