liburutegiaooc | TDM 1 ⬡ The Oval Portrait

Casting Call

The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe

"Long — long I read — and devoutly, devotedly I gazed."

Name: The Aristocrat
Casting Call: Characters with a Birthday from September through December
Physical Notes: Desperately wounded, to the point of being bedridden, but not losing consciousness.
Personality Notes: Curious, and prone to becoming enraptured by the pursuit of learning about whatever has caught their curiosity. Mildly delirious due to injury.
Compulsions: To learn about their surroundings, whether through study of the portraits in the chateau apartment, conversation with a companion, or ill-advised exploration.

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"We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments."

Name: The Valet
Casting Call: Characters with an Unknown Birthday
Physical Notes: Older than The Aristocrat by ≥ 5 years.
Personality Notes: Willing and able (by force or by cleverness) to break in to a home for the well-being of their employer. A caretaker by nature.
Compulsions: To see that The Aristocrat is comfortable for the night and their wounds are tended to, and to get some rest themselves once their duty is complete. In the absence of The Aristocrat, The Valet is free to act as they please.

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"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee."

Name: The Maiden
Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from May through August
Physical Notes: Young, aged from 15-20.
Personality Notes: All smiles, loving and cherishing of all things, hating only The Painter's art, for they deprive them of their lover.
Compulsions: To live life to the fullest, to love, to be happy... But also to make their husband, The Painter happy, by being a good and willing subject for his portraiture, should he ask.
⬡ Will slowly waste away and die, should they sit and allow themselves to be painted.

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"And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter."

Name: The Painter
Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from January through April
Physical Notes: Older than the maiden by ≥ 10 years.
Personality Notes: Passionate, studious, austere, wild, moody. More in love with his art than his wife.
Compulsions: To paint. To paint, and paint, and paint some more. To ask their lovely wife to be the subject for their next piece, and to throw themselves into the completion of it.
⬡ Unaware they are doing harm with their painting, until it is complete.

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code @ efryndiel

The Chateau

⬡ Common Cast

Characters most likely to originate in The Chateau are The Aristocrat and The Valet

⬡ Literary Description

"To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque."

⬡ For Your Exploration

Characters may attempt to explore the Chateau, but it will be shrouded in darkness, and every room they enter will bring them back to the apartment chosen by The Valet. What decorations may be seen are dark and victorian in design, and the room and halls may be lit by candlelight.

The Maiden's portrait is on the wall, and will initially be cloaked in shadow for The Aristocrat to find. It appears remarkably lifelike, almost as though it is a window instead of a portrait. The other paintings on the walls will contain figures that are almost familiar to The Aristocrat and The Valet - as though they could be someone they know, but only if they squint.

There is no electricity. Characters will not have access to any powers.

The Artist's Tower

⬡ Common Cast

Characters most likely to originate in The Artist's Tower are The Maiden and The Painter

⬡ Literary Description

"But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day."

⬡ For Your Exploration

Should characters leave the Painter's studio, they will immediately be transported outside, to a sprawling field of wildflowers. There won't seem to be anything else around, but there will be a light breeze and the sound of the sea in the distance.

Inside the studio, the air is stale and musty, smelling of oil paints and turpentine. It's dim, lit only by a skylight. There is a stool for the subject and an easel with canvas sitting in the light, but everything else - art materials, more canvases, both empty and with the beginnings of paintings, and props - are all pushed to the sides of the room and cloaked in shadow.

Like The Chateau, there is no electricity, and characters will not have access to their powers.

The Library

⬡ Welcome!

Free from their roles, through either death, completion of the Story, or from not being pulled into the tale in the first place, characters will find themselves in the gardens outside of the Library itself. As always, it will look and feel like a temperate, autumn afternoon.

As this setting is part of the Library itself, characters will have full access to all their powers.

⬡ Grand Opening Coming Soon!

The front door will, unfortunately, be locked, and a sign will be taped on the doors, detailing how the Library will be opening soon, but in the meantime to please enjoy the grounds and the pizza party in the courtyard.

⬡ Pizza party?

Pizza party! In the courtyard, there will be tables set up that will be absolutely covered in stacks of paper plates, 2-liter bottles of any soda one could dream of, and stacks and stacks of pizza boxes, containing any flavor combination that could be desired. Opening a random box will provide a random, but popular, flavor. Opening a box with an Intent and a Desire for something specific will provide exactly that.

Enjoy! It won't run out.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It is hard to sit up straight, and still, when the haphazardly bandaged wound across his middle still feels like the dull point of a lance digging into his insides. It’s easier to tamp down the pain with fidgeting movement — a shift of his weight, the roll of his shoulders, or an arm across that same middle — as though to chase it away. Perhaps it would be better if he returned to the confines of his bed, he thinks for a moment, but only for a moment, because in the next breath he labels it a treacherous thought, remaining prisoner in his own room while the world spins its curiosities all around him.

Case in point where curiosities are concerned: the familiar face of the painter before him, who frowns at him from behind the easel and tells him to remain still. What focus! Focus that must be surely accompanied by skill, right?]

I am too curious to see your rendition of my face. Will you show me? That may stop my anxious fidgeting, though I cannot do anything about the way I breathe.

[Dimitri leans forward, regretting it immediately with a wince, but beckons with a gesture for Felix to turn the easel around.]

You needn’t be shy.

[(He knows shyness is not the issue.)]

[Of course shyness isn't the issue. Why would shyness ever be the issue? Felix is a master of his craft—and Dimitri's request thus prompts an irritated click of his tongue. Patrons and models are, as a general rule, so impatient, failing to realize the thought—the care—that goes into each painting; honestly, it's as though they believe Felix and his fellow artistes simply slap paint onto a canvas and call it a day. Ridiculous.

And thus Felix pauses his scribbling once more, leaning back around his easel to shoot Dimitri a Look. There's the niggling notion that Dimitri is&hdash;paler than he should be? That something isn't quite right about the bandages wrapped around his waist. Some part of Felix has always been, and will continue to be, concerned with Dimitri's general state—but art takes precedence in this whatever-it-is, so! Sir!]

There's no need for you to speak. [Hmph.] You'd take fewer breaths if you remained silent.

[He is just sayin', shortly, as he disappears behind this canvas once more. A few seconds of scratching, then, before he adds:]

You'll see it when I'm finished.

[Maybe! If Felix is feeling generous.]

[“If Felix is feeling generous” is almost too big of a hope to hinge anything on. If he began to feel generous, he would have humored him already, and so Dimitri finds it very difficult to believe he will get an early peak of this apparently amazing work of art until he’s nigh finished. His want to move about, to poke his nose into everything that doesn’t necessarily have to do with him, so he cannot abide by it.]

Come now, you can find it in yourself to humor an injured man…

[Dimitri henceforth does the opposite of sitting still: he strains to push himself up to his feet, rather wobbly after all is said and done, but managing with the willpower of someone intensely curious. He only lingers a moment in one place, a hand bracing against the back of the chair to keep him steady before he moves towards the easel and Felix behind it. You can’t turn it around from him forever!]

I want to see the process—your talent at work.

[Some obtrusive thought at the back of his mind, flitting about like a ghost, wants to question since when could Felix paint? Has he always been able? But that thought is never brought to the forefront, swept away as ridiculous. Of course he has been. Right?]

[One day I'll tag you without messing up my HTML. Anyway: Dimitri, please. Felix is not the type to be moved by pity, as Dimitri well knows, but Felix The Artist™ is even less so? That wound simply adds a sort of... je ne sais quoi to his subject, in his opinion. There is beauty in suffering, or something—and as Felix is eager to capture it, Felix offers a quiet huff in lieu of an actual response. Humoring an injured idiot, huh... that will be the day...

But Dimitri just has to stand? Just has to push himself forward as Felix furiously attempts to put the finishing touches on his sketch, and—well. A huffy sort of noise as Felix glances upward at the last moment, brow furrowing dangerously.]

Boar—

[Felix's first concern is that Dimitri, unsteady as he is, will tip forward, sending this easel crashing to the floor; his second concern, however, is the rough state of his sketch (yw for my 5 seconds spent in mspaint), because enough of Felix remains intact to know that it's? It will look better with paint. Definitely. He knows what he's doing; he will capture Dimitri's essence in color, so let him just hastily stand, doing his best to block his work-in-progress.]

What do you think you're doing? I told you to sit. [Sir! He cannot possibly work under these conditions!] It's—I have more to add. Obviously.

[And he can't add this ~more~ while his model is peering at his progress! Go away.]

I will sit after I steal a look.

[Which is not a lie; he will sit afterwards, because it sure is an effort to stand, but his curious desire drives him until he finds himself directly behind Felix to catch a glance. Given the size of the easel, his old friend can’t just turn the whole thing around without a swift effort, and even then surely Dimitri will catch a glance at the sketch already lain down on the canvas—

And he does, finally. And… oh.]

This is… well.

[Well. Hm. There are many things he could say about his portrait there. Some of them good, many of them… not quite as complimentary, but far be it from Dimitri to rain criticism down on someone who’s clearly trying their best. Especially since he doesn’t believe his attempt at doing the same would have been half as recognizable; Felix got the, ah, hair down, that’s for sure. Maybe the nose, too? So, as earnest as ever-]

The likeness is uncanny. You’ve captured my nose well.

[If Felix were to, say, knock out his unsuspecting model, would that greatly affect the quality of his work? Would it? Probably so—and yet Felix considers it as the taller man easily peeks, like, right over him, silently studying what is very much a work in progress. It's—well! It's rude, is what it is, but Felix feels rather silly standing here with his arms outstretched; time, then, to lower them, scowling all the while. He's not embarrassed. He has no reason to be embarrassed.

...He's mildly embarrassed—and this is not something he handles with, ah, any sort of grace. Naturally. Time to cross those arms.]

Your nose? [A short, sharp huff.] Hardly something worth drawing attention to. It's—common.

[Take your peasant's nose and go, sir! Good day! Or not, because Felix still intends to finish this portrait even though it's nothing compared to the portrait he's to paint of his wife. Now that's a beauty; now that is Inspiration, which Felix holds near and dear to his heart as he looks back up at Dimitri.]

And that patch over your eye ruins the symmetry of your face.

[Sorry you're ugly, Dimitri. :/]

[Wow! What’s wrong with his nose? It’s a perfectly good nose.

A nose… that he will not exactly turn up at these criticisms, though he does cast his look downwards to Felix’s crossed arms, his discontented demeanor which seems to imply a degree of embarrassment. Dimitri clears his throat, wonders if he’s feeling self-conscious about the state of this rather interesting portrait and flinging the blame on something as unavoidable as his eyepatch.]

Does it? You and I both know it is better on than off. [The eyepatch, he means. If he thought Dimitri was going to argue the point about being ugly, he is quite wrong. Such is having a middling sense of self worth, but hey, that’s not the point today.]

Of course, no face is perfectly symmetrical, is it? It should be strange for you to paint a face so perfect.

TDM 1 ⬡ The Oval Portrait

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hello i'm still laughing at this

closes my eyes at my own decisions

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