TDM 1 ⬡ The Oval Portrait

[liburuzaina]

	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. «« »» "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. «« »» "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. «« »» "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. «« 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. navigation • premise • reserves • faq

Comments

V | DMC5 | MAIDEN (May 1st)

[summonere]

I will match any format, I just tend to type TLs as prose for ease. Here's some art for V's Portrait to find in the Hall. PM me any questions.

---

The tower (artists)

His face reminds him of his mother's. Her green eyes, strong nose and brows, the long oval of her face. He's been known to snear at her picture, or place it face down on a desk. Now he finds it pleasant, almost nostalgic. As if he somehow better understands her place in all of this now that he too has a husband and the promise of a life together. He tries to remember when that ever became a desire of his, but the oppressive air of the studio dulls all real attempts.

He lifts a hand to push his hair off his face frowning, only realizing he was meant to sit still (and sit and sit and sit--). He could apologize but that rankles his personality, even now.

"What if I spirited you away outside for a while?" he asks instead. He offers a weary smile as he jokes, "Come away o human child?"

The field (ota)

His voice is sonorous, soothing and pleasant as it drifts on the wind. He reads poetry aloud to the flowers, the grass, the trees:

"The sun rises,
The goldenrod blooms,
I drift in fields of summer,
My is adrift in my body,
It shines in my heart and hands, in my teeth,
It shines up at the old crane
Who holds out his drainpipe of a neck
And creaks along in the blue.

And the goldenrod shines with its life, too,
And the grass, look
The great field wavers and flakes,
The rumble of bumblebees keeps deepening.
A phoebe flutters up,
A lark bursts up all dew."

Pizza....... (ota)

He looks at the string of cheese dangling at the tip and at the shimmering grease. Then he wrinkles his nose with apparent distaste.

"Disgusting," he mutters and then tosses the slice back where it came from. He'd rather starve.

Wildcard (ota)

Go nuts.

pizza

[mercyful]

"Oh, I don't know," says a lightly accented voice. "The vegetarian option isn't bad. Far less grease as well." The blonde takes another bite, carefully balancing the paper plate close to her mouth so her veggie toppings don't spill all over her.

[summonere]

He looks unconvinced but, considering their most recent adventure into storyland, maybe he's just in a bad mood.

"I've never developed a taste for it," he decides. "I don't care for most foods."

[mercyful]

"Oh?" She looks interested in that, but is also polite enough that she doesn't launch into a flurry of questions. Torbjörn would, she thinks, and though she's a lot like the man, Angela has a bit more tact.

"I hope that doesn't make things difficult for you."

[summonere]

He can feel it, right on the surface of his skin. One of his familiars wants to be released at hearing those words. Griffon would like to tell the world how much trouble V's picky eating causes them. But something is different in the magic here and the familiar can't summon himself into the conversation. This causes V's mouth to twitch in amusement.

Then he relents, and shrugs out an arm. A black creature that looks like a griffon vulture with demonic mandibles puts itself together out the black tattoos on the summoner's skin. It is a gooey, stringy process as it forms itself.

"You had something to say?" V inquires patiently of this bird.

We're all about to learn together that the summon cannot speak to anyone but V. So while V closes one eye and leans his head away as his ear is shouted into, Angela hears nothing.

[mercyful]

Oh, a demonic bird pulling itself out of someone's arm. Must be Tuesday.

...is decidedly not what Angela thinks as she witnesses the summoning. She's seen many a strange thing: a talking gorilla, a woman who can blink forwards and backwards through her own timestream, but nothing quite like this. Angela is shocked, but also fascinated. It's in her nature to try and figure out absolutely everything — proof of Torbjörn's influence, no doubt — and her mind is practically spinning with possibilities. The shock leaves her just as quickly as it washed over her and she peers at the bird with interest.

"Is it made of nanobots?" she murmurs aloud, but the man's reaction has her brow knitting in concern. "Are you all right?"

[summonere]

Do I look like I'm made of nanobots, lady? I'm a demon!

Angela is missing out on a mouthy tirade, and it is V who seems to catch onto this. He Reaches over and closes the bird's set of beaks.

"She can't hear you," he says. "So no need to shout in my ear."

The bird shakes its head loose irritably, large wings span extending in a show of defiance. One of the wings does indeed graze V's head, sweeping hair into his face. The bird is not apologetic.

"This is one of my familiars," he explains for Angela's benefit while glowering sidelong at the jerk that just hit him.

[mercyful]

"Familiars," she repeats, recalling the word from stories with magic. She had grown out of them rather quickly in her childhood and had focused on science instead. That doesn't, of course, mean there isn't a scientific explanation for what she's just witnessed; it just means she hasn't worked it out yet.

"It's unusual that I can't hear them," she continues. "Can you perhaps hear at a frequency my ears can't detect?"

[summonere]

"He's normally unpleasantly audible to everyone," V corrects with a jab at his very crass demon bird. "He is, however, made of magic and his core may be interacting differently in this world."

He can take a look, in fact. The bird collapses down in a fine black particulate mist that swirls around purple sphere of energy. V holds this in his palm, examining it back and forth.

While he does this, he humorously confides to Angela, "It would be inconvenient if I could no longer use him as a distraction."

[mercyful]

"I see." Unfortunately Angela won't agree that it's magic. There's no such thing! Magic is just another word for something that science has yet to explain. So in her mind, that's what this is. After all, didn't she see Gabriel in Cairo, moving in a strange black mist that encircled him as he fired his guns?

"Do you need to distract people often?"

[summonere]

"Demons," he corrects, distracted. The composition of the core seems the same, feels the same. He'll have to investigate further another time. For now, he just closes his hand. This places the bird back where he belongs, and returns the tattoos to V's arm.

"But, he is also a much better conversationalist than I am."

So yes, he does find the need to distract people sometimes. Mouthy birds interrupting otherwise sensitive conversations helped V to avoid saying things he didn't feel like saying.

Pizza

[royalboar]

Dimitri doesn’t share the same discontent when he glances at the stringy, greasy stuff reflecting in a sheen on the slice, but he’s never been a picky eater — not with a dead palate and so many years without the privilege to be choosy. Even so, he can understand the reaction from a standpoint rooted in offense; upended from everything, and they’re to be happy being fed strange food as though they’d welcome their new situation so easily?

“I understand your hesitation,” he chimes in, arms crossed, though V hardly asked for his opinion.

“Though there does not appear to be much else to choose from.”

[summonere]

"Then I'll starve," he says in deadpan. The response is a little over the top for just some pizza, but it's not as though V is above dramatics. "Pizza is a tad mundane after such a display of magic, but I suspect it means that other food may be procured in the future."

So, no, he doesn't actually expect to starve. He expects that whoever is behind the magic library is trying to throw them a pizza party. Why is he here instead of Dante then?

[royalboar]

"Mundane?" Dimitri echoes as he glances back down at the pizza itself, overflowing with toppings and missing several triangular-shaped slices here and there. "It looks anything but."

Not to be contrary, but the observation is almost too odd to him. Still, this man hardly seems impressed by it; disgusted enough to even dismiss it until they're given something more suitable.

"Do you think they intend to keep us here?"

Implying they will be fed with something else in the future doesn't bode well for a temporary stay.

[summonere]

V apprises Dimitri for a moment, but picks up quickly enough that this must be someone from fantasy land.

"It's called pizza," he explains. "This presentation of the food is common in worlds with adequate modernization to make them largely identical between differing toppings and to easily put them in these branded boxes."

No one ever understands what V is talking about, he doesn't know why he bothers. Indeed, he even seems to realize this and just moves on with a tired look.

"I don't know if the intent is to keep us, but unless the mastermind of all this is particularly powerful it's no small thing to pluck a group of people from other worlds and dimensions. Why go through the trouble only to return us?"

[royalboar]

‘No one understands what V is talking about’ is a fine sentiment that applies in this situation, too. Dimitri understands the explanation at a fundamental level, but the idea is still incredibly foreign to the point of it being novel — granted, it’s all rather cheesy-looking (also not necessarily bad in his opinion probably), but if they were all meant to be varied, different in each “branded” box, then why should this man dismiss it so easily? Would it be so difficult to find one he liked?

But, ah. Matters of food isn’t exactly the priority at the moment, and he tears his thoughts away to focus on that of magic. Foreign magic, too, a subject that Dimitri finds himself equally useless in.

“That is hard to say without knowing much about the intent. You…” Here, he frowns a bit more deeply, unsure how to phrase the question. “Did you find yourself playing a role when you arrived? A compulsion to act a certain way?"

[summonere]

The unpleasant nature of his role makes V inclined to lie and deny that it happened. Unfortunately, he can also hear Griffon even when the bird has not been summoned. He is being nettled by some unseen force which causes him to settle into the bored frown that is customary whenever Griffon is heckling him.

"Yes," he answers tersely, looking away at nothing in particular. Oh, he probably has to give more of an answer than that, doesn't he. He opens his mouth, but still doesn't immediately say anything. "Some gothic romance about a painter depleting their muse in a lonely tower by the sea."

You know. That story, haven't you read it before? V definitely has.

[royalboar]

Unfortunately, Dimitri has never heard of that particular story.

“Romance?” A gothic one, at that. Equally unfamiliar to his tastes, as his retort reveals. “There was nothing very romantic about my injured and delirious state.”

If it looks as though V is uncomfortable, it’s a shame that he can only find it in his repertoire to question it. Subtlety is an art suited for other people not named Dimitri.

“What part did you play? A painter?"

[summonere]

"Literary romance," V clarifies with suppressed exasperation that not everyone knows the taxonomy of literary genres!!(!!) "Romanticism idealizes certain beautiful traits about a situation or an era, and the gothic qualifier indicates that there may be supernatural or tragic elements to that beauty."

Which makes answering Dimitri's question all the more uncomfortable. Because V had been the romanticized thing, and his slow death was the tragedy. His supernatural haunting of his portrait was also-- He actually shudders remembering the disorientation of existing in the Chateau while his essence lived on in that painting.

He's not so smug now that he's uncomfortable, and his talking bird can't talk to anyone else to distract them and take the heat off. So here he is, too disturbed by what he remembers to finish answering.

[royalboar]

It is a very academic kind of correction, and Dimitri’s expression reveals the exact sentiment of an ‘oh’ without uttering as much. But his pride is a woeful thing in general, and it takes zero offense to V’s exasperation behind the explanation.

Tragedy. He supposes that might account for all the gloom, and the injury he had to endure for a time. And the delirium of an unclear mind — something that ran too parallel to his personal experiences than he liked.

“I see,” he says, but waits as though expecting the question he asked to be answered. But V leaves it hanging, and Dimitri frowns deeply again, wondering if he caught a shudder running through him.

“Were you... ensnared in these apparent tragic elements, as well?”

If all else fails... just pry more.

[summonere]

"I..." He closes his eyes wearily for a moment. "Yes. I was the subject of the portrait."

Who Dimitri saw in the portrait was beside the point. The point was the essence it exuded. Its eerie perfection. V had looked at it together with the valet, trying to comprehend the sick feeling it gave him. It was like looking at his own corpse.

"As they paint you, you wither away and die. They take something from you with their obsession and they put it into their work. And you let them, because you love them."

To be unmade and made again lesser is not a new experience to him. The creation of Nelo Angelo lives on in his mind, it is V's anguish to bear now. But he had never loved Mundus.

The field!

[foulplayed]

You know? Perhaps Yuri hasn't given enough time over to the consideration of poetry. He knows he loves singing — both listening and (secretly) performing — and that he's deeply charmed by the magic of spinning a story from words, but most of the poetry he's seen has been dry, dusty, and printed in the pages of old books. Seeing a piece performed aloud is ... different, to say the least, and while it's a far cry from the shows put on by the Mittelfrank Opera Company?

Well. Maybe he shouldn't be expecting an award-worthy performance from a stranger in a field, performing to flowers. Yuri approaches quietly, well-practiced in the art of keeping his tread soft, and twirls a bloom he plucked earlier between his forefinger and thumb as he waits for him to finish.

"Keep on like that and you just might lull me to sleep," he says lightly, when the piece has drawn to a close. "... That's a compliment, by the way. Your voice is— calming."

Deep. Full. Idly, Yuri wonders what it might be like to hear him sing.

"How did your audience find it?"

Yuri gestures towards the sea of wildflowers, amusement quirking the corners of his lips.

"Good reviews?"

I'm back from my descent into genshin hell

[summonere]

"It's perhaps a little modern for their tastes." He looks up at Yuri from where he's seated in the grass, seemingly in all seriousness. "But even I need a break from the classical pastoral ballads from time to time."

Then he quirks a sideways smirk at his own joke, letting his attention drift back out over the flowers. This meadow near the ocean cliffs is melancholy, but also undeniably peaceful.

"But I'll be sure to read them the "Litany of Spring" before I go."

field

[libromancy]

These fields remind her of home, which helps calm her nerves. Claris may not know where she is, but even a vague feeling of familiarity means that she can focus on her surroundings. Hearing a lilting voice nearby, the young woman follows it, leading her to him.

She waits until he has finished his verse before making her presence known, stepping out from a copse of oak trees.

"That was lovely," She says, with a quiet smile. "Did you write that yourself?"

[summonere]

He chuckles, he feels as though people make that assumption about him often. But that feeling can only be an illusion created by the story, he hasn't ever met that many people.

"I think I am a much better student of poetry than a poet myself," he replies. Which does not quite answer her question directly.